This heat tends to make my home office almost unbearably hot. Lacking A/C — it’s most often considered an unnecessary waste of power in a temperate city like Vancouver — I find myself locked away in a small, dark room at the back of my apartment with no windows, no air circulation, two very hot computers, two pathetically ineffective fans, and a very furry, panting white dog beside me. Working in here is pretty hellish at this time of year.

This, combined with the fact that I’ve had to pull a lot of overtime over the last couple of weeks at my day job, is why I’ve been pretty quiet on Protagonize in the last little while. I had originally hoped to get the writing circles feature up by July 15th, but my plans were foiled by an unanticipated workload.

Now that things have settled down a little, I intend to get cracking on features and site updates once again this week. I’ll be taking a week off in early August (!) and I expect to have a slew of new stuff on the site for you all to play with in the coming three weeks or so.

So, to make a long story short, apologies for my unintended absence. I’m back, and you should be reaping the benefits of my return shortly. :)

Protagonize named one of Canada’s top 20 Web 2.0 projects

Just a quick note about this, as I’ve elaborated a little on it already on the Taunt Media blog, but I thought you’d all be interested in hearing that Protagonize was recently named one of the top 20 Web 2.0 projects in Canada by Backbone Magazine and KPMG. You can see the full list of winners over on the Backbone site, but suffice it to say that Protagonize is in some pretty excellent company (including that of my former employer, ThoughtFarmer, which is pretty neat.)

Backbone is a technology magazine delivered both on newsstands and as an insert in one of our national papers, the Globe and Mail. If you’re looking for a hard copy, check out your local bookstore or magazine vendor for the July/August 2008 issue, or you can find the insert in the July 15th issue of the G&M.

There’s an event related to this competition happening in downtown Vancouver on the evening of September 16th. I’ll be attending, along with several other winners of the competition, so please stop by and say hello! The details are over on the Taunt Media blog here, if you’re interested in joining me there.

This week’s features

Yes, I’ve been entirely remiss in not mentioning our featured authors and Editor’s Picks on the blog over the course of the last few weeks. I’m going to get that going again, but I’ll try and keep it brief as I’m sure you can just as easily hop over to the site and see our features for yourselves.

This week’s Editor’s Pick is “One Minute Mysteries” by Smalltown125, and our featured author is LukeRyan. Congratulations to both authors, and thanks for your contributions this week!

To our new Protagonists: if you’re unfamiliar with how Protagonize features work, I wrote a little overview a couple of months ago that should cover the bases. New picks go up every Monday, so make sure to check back regularly!

I’ll also be putting up some new controls on the Stories and Authors main pages so that you can see the last few weeks’ features, as well. That should be going up sometime in the next week.

A little housekeeping

I plan to implement a few changes to the way ratings work over the next few days. No, it’s not the complete ratings revamp that I’ve been hinting at for the last few months. I’m actually going to test some minor changes to the way ratings work and see if those enhance the system and make it a little friendlier.

What do these changes include, you ask? Here’s a taste:

• Ratings now include half-marks, so you basically have double the precision you had before.
• Each overall rating will show a breakdown of vote totals per possible rating (i.e. similar to the way Amazon shows rating breakdowns.)
• You’ll no longer be able to rate your own items (I’m still debating this one. What do you all think?)

The idea here is to allow you to rate items a little more specifically, and also prevent spammy ratings. Once the changes go in, please let me know what you think.

This week, the video’s lighting is a touch better, my skin doesn’t have the unhealthy pallor it had last time (damn those ceiling lights!), and I got a haircut. Yay! (ahem.)

The links referenced in the video are posted below for your convenience. Enjoy!

Here’s the external link to the roundup on Viddler if you have trouble loading it up here.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/protagonize/videos/3/

… and here are this week’s links:

Editor’s Pick: Old Soldier by seldom

Featured Author: donmari

… and last week’s:

Editor’s Pick: The Life and Times of Bella Pleasance by Tasha_Noble

Featured Author: Dysphemism

See you next week with another video update — stay tuned!

In keeping with my tradition of mediocre video production values, I’ve added some cheesy titles and fades to really improve the experience with this one. I’ve also made it a bit shorter, so you don’t fall asleep quite as quickly. ;)

The links referenced in the video are posted below for your convenience. Enjoy!

Here’s the external link to the roundup on Viddler if you have trouble loading it up here.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/protagonize/videos/2/

… and here are this week’s links:

Editor’s Pick: Constant Reality by RedheadRose

Featured Author: Monkette

I’ll be back at some point in the next few days with the coming week’s features and some more news for you all. Stay tuned!

The links referenced in the video are posted below for your convenience. Enjoy!

Here’s the external link to the roundup on Viddler if you have trouble loading it up here.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/protagonize/videos/1/

… and here are this week’s links:

Editor’s Pick: Angel Killer by redhat

Featured Author: somebodysomeday83

Press links:

Simple and Stunning (Part 2): 10 Website Designs that Inspire
http://bitsonewmedia.com/permalink/simple_and_stunning_part_2

Social Networks- Time to Specialize
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/social-networks-time-to-specialize/

So yeah, that’s that for this week. Let me know if this is an improvement over the old-style roundup posts. :)

What new features might these be, you ask? Yes, I’ve added a new comments aggregator page, improved commenting in that you can now read merged conversations with all authors (for profile-to-profile comments), and I’ve added a little navigation tool to help users jump back to any previous branch or chapter in the story they’re currently reading. Watch the blog for more info about these changes over the next day or two!

This last two-week stint has been quite eventful, aside from site updates. Protagonize is up for a PopVox Award, made the cut for round 2 of the 2008 New Ventures BC Competition, and last but not least, we cracked the 1,500 author milestone yesterday! At last check, we’re sitting at around 1,530 registered authors. Keep those stories coming, folks.

Since I was away last week, it looks like we have a couple of Editor’s Picks and another pair of Featured Authors to catch up on. So, without further ado, let’s get on with this week’s roundup…

This week’s featured author is Falterego, a 47-year-old gentleman based in Canada. Falterego has posted one stories and 6 branches or chapters since joining the site less than two weeks ago. In addition to posting 31 comments, he currently has an amazing 4.93 average rating based on 27 ratings from other readers on the site, good for top spot as of tonight. Nicely done!

Falterego‘s single story, “The Unseen Way“, has generated a metric ton of interest thus far, garnering 32 comments, several favourites and markers, and an average rating of 4.65.

You can check out Falterego‘s profile here.

Last week’s featured author was JJ1979, a 28-year-old English literature teacher (and boxer!) joining us from the United Kingdom. JJ1979 has been prolific since joining the site only 12 days ago, having posted five stories, seven branches or chapters, and receiving an average rating from other Protagonists of 4.42, based on 24 votes.

JJ1979‘s profile is available for your viewing pleasure right here.

This week’s Editor’s Pick is “Who chooses to forget“, a linear story by seldom, a relative newcomer to Protagonize. This appealing mystery has done quite well so far, with 6 chapters, 50 comments, and a solid 4.71 average rating based on 17 votes by our readers.

Here’s a teaser:

“A parcel sat on the doorstep. Alice almost stepped on it, but caught herself in time, snatching back her foot and leaning heavily into the doorframe. The parcel was quite small, about the size of a child’s shoebox, and was wrapped in brown paper.  She glanced briefly up and down the street and then lifted it up, turning it over to find the address. Nothing on it except her name in scribbly biro: A. Randall. Alice peered at the writing, but didn’t recognise it.

“Strange,” she thought, and tried to ignore the small prickle of fear that stabbed suddenly in her chest. “It’s nothing, “she told herself. “Probably some silly marketing gimmick – wanting me to buy new insurance or something.”"

You can read the rest of “Who chooses to forget” right here.

Last week’s Editor’s Pick was another linear story, “A Glossary of Forgotten Species“, by another newcomer to the site, DrPinch. What differentiates this story from the pack was the interesting subject: an encyclopedia of forgotten species, from the future. Intriguing, and if you read through the 18 existing chapters and 99 (!) comments, a ton of fun.

Make sure to check out “A Glossary of Forgotten Species” here.

Well, that’s a wrap for this (bi-)weekly roundup. I’ll be back on my normal weekly pace for updates next week, but be sure to keep an eye on the blog for details about our new features later this week.

I’m sure some of you noticed that there wasn’t a roundup last week (*cough* my fault, hence the joking post title *cough*), as I got sorta caught up actually building out various parts of the site, in addition to a variety of crises throughout the week. After an amusing week of fixing features I didn’t think were broken in the first place, I think things on the site should be settling down now.

To start things off, I’m changing the format of the weekly roundup. Actually, there isn’t going to be a weekly roundup anymore — now that I’ve recamped the homepage to show the latest blog posts, I’m hoping more people will see/read them, so I’m just going to post stuff as I see fit. I’ll still post a note about the Editor’s Picks every Monday, though, which is what I’ll do now.

The other big news on the site this week was that we hit a major milestone: Protagonize cracked the 1,000 registered authors plateau last Sunday! We’re actually sitting at about 1,100 authors now, which is awesome.

I also realize that not all of these authors are actively posting, but a large number of them log in regularly and check out your stories, so don’t be shy in contributing to the site; the eyeballs are there, reading your work, but it’s not an intimidating environment. In fact, our authors are amazingly welcoming, so I encourage you all to say hi to new members with a comment on their profiles (and new authors, fill out those profiles — you never know when you might be our Featured Author for the week!)

I’m hoping the site will spread virally and that you guys will help me bring in new writers (and readers!) to the site as I keep building out new features and functionality.

You may also have noticed the new notifications feature is now live on the site. I’ll posting something here discussing how this works in the next day or two.

On to our features this week (and last, to get caught up!)…

“Fire exploded out of Kai’s hands, scattering everyone watching the lesson. Master Tharyn side stepped just far enough that the flames shot past him but left his cloak smoking from the heat.

“Very good, Kai, but I am positive I asked you to light the candle, not dissolve it. You power is quite impressive; however, power without control is power better left unused.”

You can view there rest of “The Flame Weaver” here:
http://www.protagonize.com/story/the-flame-weaver

Last week’s Editor’s Pick was “Land Before Time“, an addventure by veteran Protagonist redhat. The story still ranks second in our Hot Stories this week, so check it out!

You check out Crymzon‘s profile here:
http://www.protagonize.com/author/Crymzon

Last week’s Featured Author was jait, another Canadian who’s picking up a major following of favourites and is making his presence felt around the site.

You can take a look at jait‘s profile here:
http://www.protagonize.com/author/jait

Also, Emily Chang featured Protagonize on her site, eHub, which profiles web applications, services and sites, with a focus on next generation web and social sofware.

If you have any feedback or suggestions, as usual, please comment here and let me know!

My apologies for the late posting this week, but I’ve been sidetracked with other work on the site and I’m just getting around to it now. It’ll be short and sweet this time, as it’s pretty late here on the west coast, the Canucks just got eliminated from the NHL playoffs (argh!) and I’ve got a new feature that should interest you all half-complete that should be up and running this weekend.

Also, if you didn’t see the collaborative writing post on the blog from earlier this week, it’s been host to some lively conversation amongst our members. If you’d like to participate, or have any suggestions on things you believe are missing from the site, take a look here:

http://blog.protagonize.com/2008/03/31/thoughts-on-the-collaborative-writing-process/

“The deafening blast hurled him several feet from the ground. Before he realized what was happening, the dome was on fire. The Temple’s oil lamps lay scattered on the floor. Agni, the God of Fire, appeared to be voraciously hungry, whooshing and swallowing everything in sight at a blinding pace. It wouldn’t be long before the entire structure collapsed. The ever smiling Krishna idol was standing still, flute in hand and engulfed in flames.

A few seconds later, high pitched screams of agony pierced the sky, dwarfing the sounds of destruction created by the fire and wind. He turned around to see bodies and parts lying everywhere. Men, women and children were running or dragging themselves away from the scenes of death and destruction.”

You can view there rest of “The Sanctuary” here:
http://www.protagonize.com/story/the-sanctuary

Bolsheviki has posted four stories and 14 branches or chapters since joining the site only slightly more than three weeks ago, in addition to posting 11 comments. In that short time, she’s racked up an amazing 4.68 average rating from our site members, based on from 25 total ratings. Well done!

You check out Bolsheviki‘s profile here:
http://www.protagonize.com/author/Bolsheviki

Note: If you find email notifications bothersome, you can turn them off on the “Notifications” tab when editing your profile.On top of this, we’ve made a few other tweaks to the way the site works this week.

First off, we’ve modified the way Hot Stories are calculated (slightly.) Based on our original algorithm, we’ve made a few changes so that repeat posts in a story by the same author are worth slightly less. The problem we were running into was that some authors were posting 10 or more branches or chapters in a story on their own, with no one else participating, and that was propelling them into the Hot Stories listing based strictly on story activity.

This has now been modified, so that each distinct author participating in a story adds a bonus to the story’s “hotness.” This should help balance things out. However, please keep in mind that the “Hot Stories” algorithm is likely to be tweaked again in the future, as needed, in the sake of fairness to all authors.

The other, less noticeable change that we’ve made this week is the addition of microformats throughout the site. Protagonize is now XFN-compliant (XHTML Friends Network) on your profile pages, as well as supporting the hCard, rel-tag, and rel-directory microformats in various areas of the site. If the semantic web is your bag, we hope you enjoy these changes!

In the meantime, please spread the word about Protagonize (hit that “share” link on our Facebook product page and get your friends to sign up!), and be sure sign up on the site and subscribe to our blog at http://blog.protagonize.com/.

You can also follow Protagonize updates on Twitter here:
http://twitter.com/protagonize

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of the week! I’ll be back in a few days with our next roundup installment.

Apologies for the delay in getting this out — the beginning to this week has been amazingly hectic and the weekend was filled with… Wii.

I caved in and bought a Nintendo Wii on Good Friday (an excellent way to spend a day off.) After calling a dozen stores to actually find one, I spent the better part of the weekend playing Wii Tennis, Golf, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and generally eating a lot of turkey, I have the most incredibly sore shoulders and forearms. It’s ridiculous, actually, considering I’m not totally inactive. My arms really shouldn’t hurt this much.

So yeah, as I listen to the latest Bran Van 3000 album (which is surprisingly good), here goes nothin’…

As usual, we have another fresh featured story for you tonight. Okay, well, it’s been featured for a day and a half already, so it may not be totally new to you, but it’s the thought that counts. :)

This week’s Editor’s Pick is “After Hours“, an addventure by the lovely and prolific Jillian, another Canadian (like myself) who’s been a featured author on Protagonize in the past. Her recent contribution to the site has picked up an admirable rating of 4.58 (as of tonight) based on 12 ratings, and has been commented on 4 times and favourited 4 times.

Here’s a snippet from this week’s feature:

“”It’s your move.”

“No it’s not; I just went.”

“You did? Where?”

“Knight to E4. See, there.”

“Oh, so you did. It’s my turn then.”

“Yes, it’s your turn.” The curator agreed, leaning back in his chair once again.

His name was Archibald Leech, the curator of his very own, rather significant, art museum. He was getting on in years; in fact, he would be seventy-one just next month. His beard was scruffy and white, along with the little hair he had left on top of his spotted head. He was the sort of man that had always worn crisp, ironed khaki pants and the sort of man that always would. He carried a cane also; once upon a time it had been a fashion accessory but now it was a life necessity. His life’s passion was to walk among the walls of art in his museum; gaze upon their beauty, restore them to near perfection, and above all, contemplate the mysteries that lay within them.”

You can view there rest of “After Hours” here:

http://www.protagonize.com/story/after-hours

This week’s featured author is Writers_Block, a 25-year old chap from Canada, completing our Canadian sweep of features for the week. Writers_Block’s most popular story (currently) is “Villains”, which was a close second choice for our Editor’s Pick this week. Yes, that’s how I select the featured authors… sometimes. :)

Writers_Block has posted 7 stories and 5 branches or chapters, as well as a whopping 22 comments, and has tallied a fabulous average rating of 4.58 from 33 total ratings by other Protagonize members. Nice work, Writers_Block!

You check out Writers_Block’s profile here:

http://www.protagonize.com/author/Writers_Block

We’ve been featured on a few interactive fiction blogs this week but I’m going to link to something totally unrelated to IF tonight. Head over to Konigi (a pretty sweet design blog / gallery, if I do say so myself) and vote for us!

protagonize | Konigi
http://konigi.com/design/submissions/protagonize

This week’s been pretty light feature-wise, but I managed to squeak in some minor user interface changes in a variety of places that you may have noticed. We have some other spiffy stuff in store for the rest of the week too. I’ll keep this short and just include a little visual taste of what we have in store within the next couple of days.

As usual, you guys have produced some spectacular content this week. The quality of the writing on the site so far never fails to amaze me. I’m having a harder and harder time picking features every Sunday night… to the point where I have to dedicate an hour to just catching up to my page-marked stories from throughout the week just to make my selections. My goal is for more and more writers to both use and enjoy the site, so please make sure to tell your friends about Protagonize and help build our author community!

In the meantime, please spread the word about Protagonize (hit that “share” link on our Facebook product page and get your friends to sign up!), and be sure sign up on the site and subscribe to our blog at http://blog.protagonize.com.

You can also follow Protagonize updates on Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/protagonize

Eyes are drooping. My pillow calls. Time for bed. Have a great week!

(Okay, maybe I should have been a bit more emphatic. It’s Monday, and it’s late. :)

What all is going on this week? Not much, aside from a metric ton of excellent content created by Protagonize members.

Here’s a few quick entertaining (or simply funny) CYOA-related treats that I dug up on Flickr (the first via Jeff Atwood‘s Twitter feed) for those of you who might enjoy a little nostalgia:

Early Programmer books
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dani3l3/2168597987/

“Are These Yours, Sir?”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jabberwockyjack/2205522338/

bottom of the spiral
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathowie/2642676/

Got any good creative writing or “choose your own adventure”-style photos or links? Send them my way (via email or by commenting here) and I’ll post them in our next roundup!

You wake up. Nothing unusual about that, six billion people on Earth do it every single day. Except, with those swirling loops of light above your head, you can’t entirely be sure you’re on Earth.

“Help” comes a faint cry. From this distance (given you’re still barely awake you can’t be sure what distance this is), it’s hard to tell if it’s a man, woman or a very clever dog.

As you get up, you notice the floor smells of fudge. That’s because it is fudge, you realise. You look around. Sure enough, you are surrounded by fudge demons. What do you do? What do you do?

You can view there rest of “Choose Your Own Adventure!” here:
http://www.protagonize.com/story/choose-your-own-adventure

Rac7hel has posted 4 stories and 11 branches or chapters, as well as 5 comments of her own, and has tallied a stupendous rating of 4.70 from 40 total ratings by other Protagonize members. Nice work, Rac7hel!

You check out Rac7hel‘s profile here:
http://www.protagonize.com/author/Rac7hel

Web Site of the Week: Interactive Fiction Writing Online http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/2008/03/15/web-site-of-the-week-interactive-fiction-online.htm

In addition, we’re back on the Techvibes Vancouver start-up index this week, holding steady (well, within one spot of last month) at a solid #13:

Vancouver Start-up Index – March 2008
http://www.techvibes.com/blog/vancouver-start-up-index-march-2008/

Finally, Protagonize was listed in a set of 24 online reading and writing communities and resources over at WordClay:

Author Networking: The Top 24 Online Reading and Writing Communities You Need To Know
http://freeself-publishing.com/2008/03/11/author-networking-the-top-24-…

I made this change because I didn’t think enough people were seeing the updates from our blog, and it also balances out the main Stories nicely. Finding balance in life (and in user interfaces) is always good. :) On top of that, now you can follow the latest Protagonize happenings via our Twitter feed, right there on the homepage.

On top of that, I’ve also spent a good chunk of this week submitting Protagonize for consideration in a variety of awards shows. The most notable of these is the Prix Ars Electronica, a prestigious digital arts competition that takes place at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria every year.

Protagonize was nominated by one of the Prix’s advisors this year in the Digital Communities category, and we’re honoured to be submitting ourselves for consideration for a Golden Nica by the Prix’s esteemed jury.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

In the meantime, please spread the word about Protagonize (hit that “share” link on our Facebook product page and get your friends to sign up!), and be sure sign up on the site and subscribe to our blog at http://blog.protagonize.com/.

You can also follow Protagonize updates on Twitter here:
http://twitter.com/protagonize

Until next time!

Sorry for the delay in getting this roundup out the door — the last couple of days ended up being a lot busier than I expected, so I’m just getting caught up on my backlog of Protagonize work now. I did manage to get the editor’s picks done on time, though, so please refrain from dragging out the pillory just yet…

As usual, if you’re not a Protagonize fan on Facebook… well, I don’t know what to tell you. It’d sure be nice to have you join us. :)

Anyhow, on with the news this week!

We’ve had a great week for both content and new users, and I think you guys all deserve a big thank you for contributing some excellent fiction this week! Our two previous features are all still planted firmly in the top 5 Hot Stories, and I had a helluva time picking this week’s features. I think next week may be even tougher, with the quality stories posted over the course of the last couple of days.

Unlike last week, both of our features this week come from previously featured authors (entirely be coincidence!)

This week’s featured story is “Joyride“, a linear story by veteran Protagonize author Gaelythe, who was a featured author at the end of January. I almost chose this story as last week’s Editor’s Pick, but it had only just been posted, so I put it on hold for a week. “Joyride” has accumulated an 5 intense chapters from 3 different authors, as well as an amazing 15 comments from readers. The quality of the story thus far is a joy to behold (and I’m not patting myself on the back here, either — I couldn’t resist but contribute to the story myself) and I hope it’ll keep going strong for the next few weeks!

Here’s a teaser to whet your appetite… and whet it, it shall:

Two sets of three silvery disks, that was all it had taken to ruin Aaron’s life. He knew he wasn’t free of blame, not entirely. He’d known the risks. He’d needed the money to save his daughter, and the risks hadn’t mattered.

Most Joyriders didn’t usually do that much damage anyway. They leaped into the body they’d rented for an hour or a day and headed straight for a sexual encounter or their drug of choice. The Joyride let them feed their vices without consequence. Reputations (often vital in the Corporacracy) were undamaged, addiction and subsequent detox were avoided.

You can view there rest of “Joyride” here:
http://www.protagonize.com/story/joyride

This week’s featured author is Amo1143, who’s posted 4 stories and 12 branches, including our Editor’s Pick from two weeks back, “Drop Point.” With 46 ratings as of this writing, her stories are averaging a spectacular rating of 4.7 (out of 5) overall.

You check out Amo1143’s profile here:
http://www.protagonize.com/author/Amo1143

I’ve spent this week getting accustomed to my new digs at my day job, but I managed to sneak in a few usability enhancements throughout the site, as well as a new e-mail notification type. I have a couple more tweaks to existing functionality in store for this week, as well as a couple of smaller (yet noticeable) new features. I’ll save those for next week’s email.

I’m also posting Protagonize updates on Twitter now, for those of you who use it. You can follow Protagonize on Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/protagonize

That’s a wrap for this week — check back next Monday for another Protagonize weekly roundup!

In the meantime, please spread the word about Protagonize (hit that “share” link on our Facebook product page and get your friends to sign up!), and be sure sign up on the site and subscribe to our blog’s RSS feed!

À la prochaine!