This document summarizes a project called SavePublishing, which is a bookmarklet that allows users to easily tweet sentences from web pages. It provides usage statistics showing increasing usage from December 28th to January 5th. It also shows a variety of reactions, both positive and negative, to the project. The goal is to make it easier for users to share content, though some feel it may discourage full reading of articles.

1. S—A—V—E—P—U—B—L—I—S—H—I—N—G
the true story of a little bookmarklet that will not save publishing
PAUL FORD
@ftrain
Wednesday, January 9, 13

2. [who]
Table of Paul Ford
1996–2000 Blogger (Ftrain.com), copywriter. (Perl/HTML)
2001–2005 Writer: Novelist, NPR. (XML)
2006–2010 Harper’s: Editor, programmer, archivist, writer. (XSLT/Java/PHP)
2011– 2013 Activate: Director. Writer: NYMag, etc. Teacher: SVA. Advising, etc. (Python/JS)
who · what · when and how · where · reactions · why
Wednesday, January 9, 13

3. [what]
Visit SavePublishing.com
and “install” the 1
bookmarklet. *
Click a sentence to tweet it. 4
Visit a web 2
* A bookmarklet is a bit of page and click
JavaScript code that you the bookmarklet.
save as a bookmark in your
web browser. When you
click it instead of going to a
new page it runs some
code. Bookmarklets can Tweetable sentences turn red.
CHANGE the page you’re Everything else (including ads) 3
visiting. stays the same. When it works.
who · what · when and how · where · reactions · why
Wednesday, January 9, 13

4. [when and how]
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Home page requests (#=1K pages) Bookmarklet calls (#=100 calls)
28/Dec #### 28/Dec ####
29/Dec ####### 29/Dec #### &c. Tweets,
“DEPLOY”
30/Dec ########## 30/Dec #####
31/Dec ######################################### 31/Dec ##################### enthusiasm,
01/Jan ################################### 01/Jan ################# exaggeration,
02/Jan ########################################### 02/Jan ################## annoyance,
03/Jan ################# 03/Jan ####### confusion, bug
04/Jan ########### 04/Jan ###
05/Jan ##### 05/Jan # reports, overall
06/Jan #### 06/Jan # very pleasant
07/Jan ###### 07/Jan ##
SOURCE: cat access_log|grep "GET / " | cut -d" " -f4|perl -ne SOURCE: cat access_log|grep "GET /js/lib/savepublishing.js " |
'/^.(.{6})/; print "$1n"'|uniq -c |perl -ne '/^D+(d+) (.+)/; cut -d" " -f4|perl -ne '/^.(.{6})/; print "$1n"'|uniq -c |perl -ne
print "$2 ".("#" x ($1/1000))."n";' '/^D+(d+) (.+)/; print "$2 ".("#" x ($1/100))."n";'
who · what · when and how · where · reactions · why
Wednesday, January 9, 13

5. [where]
◎
who · what · when and how · where · reactions · why Note: Illustration to scale
Wednesday, January 9, 13

6. [the continuum of reactions]
“This makes it too easy for people not to read things.”
“I don’t know how this will save publishing but it’s
okay.”
“This should now work with Readability, Buffer, Pocket,
InstaPaper, Tweetbot, App.net, Tumblr, Facebook,
etc.”
“This should make it easier to tweet by identifying
‘interesting’ sentences.”
who · what · when and how · where · reactions · why
Wednesday, January 9, 13

7. [why]
• Nothing can “save publishing”
• “A sentence should be like an arrow. The writer should take aim and
try to hit a target.”
• Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance: JavaScript
(CoffeeScript === bargaining)
• !$
who · what · when and how · where · reactions · why
Wednesday, January 9, 13

8. [thanks!]
github.com/ftrain/savepublishing
Wednesday, January 9, 13