Yahoo! was generous enough to donate their venue for last Summer’s iPhone Developer Camp. During the event, I was finishing the last chapters of 140 Characters.

To follow up on that experience, Yahoo! visited my office for a Developer Spotlight on the history of iPhoneDevCamp, Twitter, my book, and the iPhone App.

As co-founder of iPhone Developer’s Camp, I maintain contact with developer communities all over the world. One very passionate group has formed in the Netherlands, and has invited me to help organize and speak during two great events. The first is a daylong hackathon:

iPhoneDevCamp Amsterdam

November 25th, 2009

11am-4pm (with lunch break)

Westergasfabriek

Attendance Max: 200 people

Sponsored by One More Thing and PayPal

The second is a two-day conference:

iCE Amsterdam

November 26-27, 2009

Westergasfabriek
Session entitled “The Dollar App” on the 26th

Session entitled “Market Your App Through Social Media” on the 27th

We’ll have books on site for purchase and I’ll be signing them throughout the week. In addition, we are reaching out to the larger iPhoneDevCamp Netherlands community—especially students—with a special offer:

All students or iPhoneDevCamp.nl alumni who join us at iPhoneDevCamp Amsterdam on the 25th may attend iCE Amsterdam for 75.00€, incl. VAT (a discount of 470.00€). In addition, all qualifying registrants will receive a free copy of 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form with their purchase. Simply comment here or email the organizers to identify yourself.

I’m very excited to visit Amsterdam for the first time with my wife Meredith, and Hypertext Edition coders Jonathan Wight & Mike Lee, among other excellent presenters. We do hope to broadcast a portion of the proceedings so stay tuned for more information as the date approaches.

Update: Check out this video of me explaining the book 140 Characters, entertaining because I confuse a metonym with a charactonym.

Brian Oberkirch captured a few thoughts about writing “140 Characters” during last weekend’s iPhoneDevCamp in Sunnyvale. Enjoy a nice, brief interview about some of the principles behind the book.

Not only was I organizing iPhoneDevCamp, but I also attempted to finish up the first draft of the book over the weekend. Hectic, but — I finished!

(Note: Of course, in the video, I mean 40,000 words.)

The Wall Street Journal has taken note of the small form:

The literary topic du jour is Twitter, with an onslaught of book deals about the site being made in recent months. For example, former Gawker blogger Nick Douglas snagged a book deal with HarperCollins on a tome about the wittiest messages written on Twitter, to be called Twitterwit.New York Times technology columnist David Pogue will write a book called The World According to Twitter, which will be a communal effort of sorts containing the best answers to humorous questions he posts on the microblogging site.

And Dom Sagolla, the founder of iPhoneDevCamp and a contributor to the development of the concept of Twitter, has been blogging about writing in short form, and recently landed his own book deal on the subject.

Any bets on who will get the next Twitter/blogging book deal? (My money is onTextsFromLastNight.com.)

That’s a good bet.

Prelude.

oh this is going to be addictive

@Dom, March 21, 2006

Twitter is born, and Dom posts the first substantive tweet in response to a message from Twitter’s inventor: @Jack.  Mastering the short form becomes a daily study for Dom. Four months later, we launch “twttr”.

It takes a year to master Twitter, and another 9 months to write the first 10 Rules. That brings us to December 2007. In February of 2008 Jack writes his famous quote, and in March Dom buys 140characters.com to help change the world.

The meeting of Dom and Adam.

July 11, 2008: iPhone 3G Launch day. Liana, a sponsor of iPhoneDevCamp, introduces Adam to Dom. We talk about Twitter and Adam’s recent move to San Francisco and of course grab the first iPhone 3G models to leave the store.

August 3: iPhoneDevCamp 2. Adam runs into Dom outside of Tommy’s Tequila and describes his idea for a Twitter book. Dom describes a similar ambition. Over margaritas, we decide to become co-authors and self-publish our work together.

@TheBook is born.

August 28: Starbucks on Townsend. We discuss chapters, format, and a timeline. We begin collecting thoughts on our wiki.

September 2: Podango in the Dogpatch. We discuss the current literary offerings on Twitter, and how to differentiate ourselves. We were to meet up a few times in October, including FlashCamp.

November 13: Starbucks on Townsend. Dom comes to Adam with an epiphany about how to differentiate ourselves: become a literary guidebook. Have an opinion about style and focus on that. We decide that our two totally different approaches to posting on Twitter will make good stylistic crosshairs.

November 17: Starbucks on 4th Street. We launch the site: 140 Characters, and @TheBook on Twitter.

“One could change the world with one hundred and forty characters.”

Fast forward to now, with you reading this post and contributing to the book!  This is our story, and it’s only just begun.