Wow, I'm sorry it took me so long to get to this article. I really loved the Pine Point presentation. What an example of great new media storytelling. It draws out something which at first seemed to me a topic that would not particularly interest me, but I felt compelled to stay with it to the very end!

Good question, Charles! Actually, I don't agree that much digital storytelling is truly nonlinear, but it is one of the characteristics advanced by people trying to define the genre. I think it refers (probably among other things) to the possibility that technology affords for the writer to offer the reader (the "user") a choice of alternative routes through the story, including different entry and exit points. Sometimes the route may differ because the user has chosen to identify with a particular character or type of character at the beginning, or because at any of certain decision points within the story the user's selection exposes them to different character encounters or plot developments. In some cases, the user may be free to explore the "storyworld" relatively randomly, in which case there is no real predetermined "story" in the sense of beginning-middle-end, so the user is effectively making it up as she goes along, although she is limited to whatever elements and decision points the author has chosen to include in the storyworld.

Hi Christine, I know what you mean about singing together, physically - I've not been in a big choir, but I do sing with a small group and I recognise that sense of the voices together becoming "more than the sum of their parts", and also that happy sense of discovery as it "brings forth a voice from you that you didn't realize you had". You are right about the intention to communicate with an audience meaning that the participants are "not singing in the shower" (Eric Whitacre's blog describes exactly how the piece was made, here: http://ericwhitacre.com/blog/the-virtual-choir-how-we-did-it). However, I still felt that it differed from both live performance and physical participatory performance, because a.)each participant could always do it again until their own piece was right and b.)there is a much greater degree of safety in performing alone in one's own familiar surroundings than with a group full of emotions on a stage. Yes, this is yet another experience that requires new vocabulary! Tia

Hi Ximena, I hear you saying that to be constantly aware of our aloneness is good, no matter what the medium, and that we need to speak and hear from this awareness. I agree, in principle, but I wonder whether we always have the strength for that degree of self-responsibility? Thanks for the link to Pauline Oliveros.

Hi Anietie, thanks for this insight. Is there a good place to go for a directory of mobile phone literature?

Hi Gareth, thanks for a really useful post with lots of questions to consider when thinking about story presentation online. This line caught my attention: "site design (as comic design) can be used set a mood, suggest a feeling or a space." I find that I am often (90% of the time) put off reading or attempting to find my way through a poem or narrative online because I find the aesthetics so poor on many sites. I do sometimes persist, because of a recommendation or because I'm particularly interested in something other than the aesthetics, but it's sometimes through gritted teeth! I know I am in a minority, but I believe it is a significant minority as I have met others who have a similar response. This also leads me to question whether your use of "we" is appropriate in all cases, e.g. when you say "we are more likely to skip through individual links or tags rather than find the point of origin and read forward chronologically", which is the demographic that makes up your "we"? Isn't it possible that people from a. different reading backgrounds and b. different personality types read online differently?

An article in The Independent today "What the web is teaching our brains" http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/what-the-web-is-teaching-our-brains-1826419.html is quite interesting in relation to transliteracy. Based on an interview with neurologist Prof. Gary Small re his book iBrain – Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, it describes the skills that may be gained and those that may be lost through computer and Internet use, if practitioners are not careful to balance their activities.

I think this is a really great slideshow. It is aesthetic and simple to follow, and also demonstrates transliteracy, not only in being online, but in that some of the meaning is actually conveyed by some of the images, rather than the images simply illustrating things that are already explicit in the text.