Have you heard of Hooked? I just learned about it today from an article in Wired. Hooked is an iPhone app that lets anyone compose and read stories made entirely of texts. I know phone stories have been super popular in Japan for years among the younger crowd but not so much here. Perhaps Hooked is the start?
The app was created by Prerna Gupta who experiemented with publishing her own stories in a mobile app and was surprised to discover that only 15% of readers read to the end even if the story only took five minutes to read. So the idea for Hooked was born.
Readers read one text message at a time and hit a big “Next” button to get the next text. Completion rates shot up to 85 percent. The app launched last fall and since then Gupta has published 9,000 stories. The top ten stories have had over 100,000 reads each. Pretty impressive.
I decided to give it a try myself just to see what it is like. The app is free. As soon as I opened it a text loaded. I hit “Next” and each time got a new text in the story. I did not get to choose the story and there was no way I could find to stop the story in progress and choose another one. The only option I could see was to keep hitting “Next.” I was bored in less than a minute but kept going for another minute before deciding to call it quits without finishing the story.
The story I got was between Ella and Jacob. Ella had been kidnapped and woke up she knew not where. Jacob was trying to help her somehow. But not knowing anything about Ella or Jacob I found it hard to care whether or not Ella was rescued. The texts also lacked a certain feeling of authenticity and had me wondering if people in such a situation would really text like that.
My verdict of Hooked? I will stick with real books, thanks.
Is it all self-published stuff? I’ve come to believe that self-publishing is the scourge of an avid reader’s life in that it has created a HUGE haystack that I now have to work my way through when shopping online for books (and that’s an experience that was already limited in effectiveness when compared to shopping in brick and mortar bookstores).
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Sam, yes it seems like it is all self-published so likely the quality varies greatly. I don’t know that self-publishing is all bad, I have read some books that were originally self-published before a large publisher picked them up. But there is definitely a lot of not so great stuff obscuring the good stuff.
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I thought it was okay. I can see the attempt to get millennial text fanatics to read. But I’m with you. Nothing like a good page turner to make the world disappear and drown you in a perfect fantasy.
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jw, yeah, it wasn’t terrible and maybe if I finished the one story I would have found the next one really good. I don;t have the patience for it though and will stick to my books 🙂
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Interesting. Obviously there’s a lack of character development… But it would be a fun challenge to do it through texts– perhaps between other people than the main characters. Not sure if stories can survive the loss of a narrator, either.
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wanderwolf, for a god writer it would definitely be an interesting challenge. And maybe if I had gotten through this story the next one would have been good but I don;t have the time or patience for that!
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I despair when I hear about technology used this way. It just panders to people whose attention span is about that of the lifetime of a mayfly. Oh and people who probably can’t write.
There, got that off my chest!
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BookerTalk, it’s an interesting use of technology but the stories aren’t that great, at least the one I was reading.
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It sounds as if this App can generate lots of not so good stories. On the other hand I have to think that a writer with a lot of imagination could do some very worthy things with it.
It is too bad one cannot choose which stories to read.
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Brian Joseph, yes I suspect you are correct about a writer with good imagination being able to do something interesting. The app might be better if it let you start a story and then give up on it if you don’t it and pick something else. I think being able to choose stories would make a big difference.
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Not interested… 🙂
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Care, stick with the books 🙂
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It sounds like an idea with loads of potential, that hasn’t been executed particularly well. Shame, because this is the sort of thing I think could be excellent! But if the quality of the story isn’t good, it doesn’t matter how you present it…
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Elle, I could see the potential for something interesting but it isn’t there yet, at least not for me. Perhaps the app will evolve over time and there will be a way to choose stories and for readers to rate them to make it easier to find the good ones.
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Yes, definitely. If it were up to me, a rating system would be one of the first things I’d implement for this app – just some way to make quality more obvious would be a start.
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It would certainly make the app more user friendly. Maybe they are working on that feature.
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I feel like I’m too old for this…
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Laila, heh, I had that thought myself as I was trying out the app 🙂
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Sounds terrific in theory, bit if it’s not well-crafted and well-executed, it won’t hold many people’s interest anyway. I’ll take your word for it and NOT bother downloading it.
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Isabella, it is interesting in theory and I was excited about it when I downloaded it but either I am not the right audience or the theory doesn’t work out well in practice.
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While I like the idea of this I just don’t see myself getting “hooked” on this. I’m about to try out a new app for book lovers – listy. I’ll see how I like that one.
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Iliana, I’ve heard of listy. You’ll have to be sure to say what you think of it.
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No thanks, I’m afraid.
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Carolyn, definitely not for everyone but it was kind of exciting to try something “new” at least for a few minutes 🙂
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The concept is very interesting but since I am not choosing what i read, I am not sure I am really going to like it. And I do not need yet another method of e-reading!!!!!!
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cirtnecce, heh, I hear you! The upside is this could potentially be great for those moments when you are in line at the grocery store and don;t have a book and don;t want to look at the celebrity magazines.
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good point about the Grocery store line 🙂
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Thanks for your review of Hooked. You’ve saved me from having to (if indeed I ever come across it). Not being able to choose what you read and not knowing what’s coming up next might suit some readers – and good for them – but it doesn’t suit my reading style.
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Glad to spare you the trouble! Obviously it isn’t my reading style either! But it was worth the try I think in case it hits it big I will know what people are talking about 🙂
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