Robot Loves Kitten

Currently developing an online green community for launch in late April 2008.

SMITH is an online magazine and community devoted to storytelling I co-founded with Larry Smith back in 2004. We went online in January of 2006, and have since produced two graphic novels, Shooting War and A.D.: After the Deluge.

In November of 2006, we ran a six-word memoir contest with messaging startup Twitter. The more than 12,000 entries we received led to the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning, published in February 2008 by HarperPerennial.

In advance of the book, we created a promotional video that actually helped a great deal in selling a product that didn’t fully exist yet.

Then we embarked on a complete rebuild of the Web site. We really worked hard to deliver on SMITH’s core mission: everyone has a story, and SMITH is the place to tell it. It was a difficult task, blending editor-driven and community-driven content, but I think we’ve gotten pretty far. Part of the difficulty is in activating a formerly passive audience: they came to SMITH to read great stories, not add their own.

XOXO.com, a company run by our friend Ben Brown, developed the simple community tools we use on SMITH. One of the most important things we are able to do now is to integrate story submissions and member signups. It’s all one simple step now, and that’s really helping spur the growth of the site.