10,000 hits during the first weekend!
Click here to download pdf version.

by Nisar Keshvani
P O Box 850, Robinson Road
Singapore 901650
URL: http://www.keshvani.com

Abstract
LEA "New Media Poetics and Poetry" Special, new media poetry, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, LEA, Leonardo Electronic Almanac Discussion, LEAD

Abstract:
LEA editor in chief, Nisar Keshvani reveals the journal received 10,000 visitors during its first weekend live and shares the accolades received from its readers. He adds 750 man-hours had gone into producing the “New Media Poetics and Poetry” Special guest-edited by Tim Peterson. Of the 70 submissions, nine crisp essays and four artist statements feature in Vol 14 No 5 – 6. The peer-reviewed electronic journa lintroduces downloadable PDFs, MLA and APA style citations to each essay and launches LEAD: Leonardo Electronic Almanac Discussion. LEAD aims to engage readers in an online moderated discussion list and real-time live chats with New Media Poetics scholars.

10,000 hits during first weekend
We must be doing something right. During our first weekend live, we scored 10,000 hits!

Launched in July, the new interface was released to coincide with the 13th International Symposium for Electronic Art (ISEA 2006) and FutureSonic 2006: Urban Festival of Electronic Music and Arts.

Since then, positive comments have flowed in from far and wide to both the new website and the Locative Media special guest-edited by Drew Hemment. Wired Blog’s Bruce Sterling describes the issue as locative pundits weighing in, with the volume sounding “like it might be pretty handy, especially if your 'smart' car is following outworn GPS tracks and you end up mired in a swamp someplace.”

Marla Schweppe, Director of Visualization from the Rochester Institute of Technology (USA) wrote: “Nice work on LEA. I spent a long time on the new website. It will be a great reference for my students.”

From the bottom of our hearts, LEA and the San Francisco team thank you; our readers, colleagues and friends who have been very encouraging with their glowing feedback.

In keeping with this momentum, we launch a new feature with this edition. In direct response to comments from both researchers and our contributors, who said they prefer downloading printable documents rather than read the “heavy-duty” text online, we introduce downloadable PDFs. For easier use, we’ve also added MLA and APA style referencing to each essay published in the issue. Griffith University’s Jason Nelson describes them as “fancy and prestigious”. Try out this feature, and let us know what you think.

This September, Tim Peterson guest edits a special issue on “New Media Poetics and Poetry”. It started gestation about 12 months ago. We release this edition just shortly after the launch of “New Media Poetics Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories”, edited by Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss.

Collectively, 750 man-hours have easily gone into this issue, from essay writing, to peer reviewing, coordination, to copy editing the content. Of the seventy-odd intial submissions, we feature nine essays written by Loss Pequeño Glazier, John Cayley with Dimitri Lemmerman, Lori Emerson, Phillippe Bootz, Manuel Portela, Stephanie Strickland, Mez, Maria Engberg and Matthias Hillner. The issue is accompanied by artists work by Jason Nelson, Aya Karpinska, Daniel Canazon Howe, mIEKAL aND, CamillE BacoS, Nadine Hilbert and Gast Bouschet.  For the first time also, be mesmerized by Mathias Hillner and Manuel Portela’s Shockwave creations.

Tim Peterson sets the scene saying: “In the new media environment, we deal with an expanded notion of "poem" as praxis of surface level and sub-textual computer code levels, and an expanded awareness of the digital poem as process. The reading and reception of this writing occurs in a networked context, in which the reader becomes an "ergodic" participant (to use Espen Aarseth's term) and helps shape the form of the new media poem.”

In line with LEA’s mission to build a community around this internationally peer-reviewed e-journal, and further engage our “ergodic” participants, we launch “LEAD: Leonardo Electronic Almanac Discussion”. In collaboration with West Virginia University’s Sandy Baldwin, LEA will lead two new initiatives:

:: A discussion forum to allow readers to engage with our renowned New Media Poetics scholars. This forum will become active from 5 October 2006. Sign up by sending an email to: leanmp-subscribe@googlegroups.com

:: A live online chat with our scholars where you interact, engage and discuss new media thematics with them. Watch this URL: http://leoalmanac.org/journal/Vol_14/lea_v14_n05-06/forum.asp for details on the venue, theme and timings of the live chats.

Our resident expert Baldwin will moderate these sessions.

If you have any ideas, thoughts or comments on the new website and would like to propose thematic issues, we welcome you to drop a note to: lea@mitpress.mit.edu

Do keep your feedback coming and watch this space for more exciting developments.

Enjoy!

Author Biography
Singaporean Nisar Keshvani is a consultant, Internet journalist, web developer, educator and new media specialist. In the last decade, he has worked across five continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Australia/Oceania). He is editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (http://LEA.mit.edu) and International Co-Editor of fineArt forum (http://www.fineartforum.org) - one of the Internet's longest runing arts publication. He has worked for various international magazines and newspapers since 1993.

Keshvani sits on the board of the Art, Science, Technology Network (ASTN), Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences & Technology; fineArt forum and on SIGGRAPH's Singapore Chapter Management Committee. He is Program Advisor (Asia Pacific) of the Brisbane Multimedia Art Asia Pacific (MAAP) Festival. Keshvani has extensive experience developing and maintaining websites and was an online journalism educator at Queensland University of Technology, Australia, examining internationalization issues and changing work practices in the online newsroom. He was also Digital Media Lecturer and module leader for Web Design Applications with Ngee Ann Polytechnic's School of Film & Media Studies in Singapore. In 2003 - 2004, Keshvani was on consultancy with the Aga Khan Development Network (a group of international development agencies working in health, education, culture and rural and economic development, primarily in Asia and Africa).

Citation reference for this Leonardo Electronic Almanac Essay

MLA Style
Keshvani, Nisar. "10,000 hits during first weekend" "New Media Poetry and Poetics" Special Issue, Leonardo Electronic Almanac Vol 14, No. 5 - 6 (2006). 25 Sep. 2006 <http://leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_14/lea_v14_n05-06/editorial.asp>.

APA Style
Keshvani, N. (Sep. 2006) "10,000 hits during first weekend," "New Media Poetry and Poetics" Special Issue, Leonardo Electronic Almanac Vol 14, No. 5 - 6 (2006). Retrieved 25 Sep. 2006 from <http://leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_14/lea_v14_n05-06/editorial.asp>.