Macmillan, Twitter and ‘Controlled Serendipity’ on the Semantic Web

Last week, NYT “Bits Blogger” Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) wrote a piece in response to The New Yorker’s George Packer, who published a criticism of Twitter on the NYer website. In this piece, Bilton used a phrase coined in an earlier piece to describe the power of the the popular web service: “controlled serendipity,” i.e.: Twitter’s power to deliver users unexpected news and information related to their personal interests via a self-selected cohort of ‘followees’ with parallel interests.

I was put in mind of this phrase again this afternoon after stumbling upon a post from HarperStudio (@harperstudio), one of the many publishers, agents, authors, and writers I follow on Twitter. The post, entitled “Gen Y Asks Why Not,” is about responses received by a member of HarperStudio, Debbie Stier (@debbiestier), after she reblogged a piece entitled, “A Gen Y Reaction to Macmillan’s Piracy Plan,” on her tumblr. The item — which concerns publisher Macmillan’s controversial plan to fight electronic book piracy by ramping up legal action against illegal downloaders — raises some great points, but what interested me the most about it was the author: Marian Schembari (@marianschembari), whose name I first encountered about a year ago, after she got significant press for her decision to pursue a job in publishing via an ad on facebook. A year later, I now discover that she has gone into business for herself as a freelance writer and social media consultant, as well as a contributing editor to Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld).

Without Twitter, I probably wouldn’t have ever heard about Schembari again, nor would I have had the opportunity to discovered her website or add her RSS feed to my Google Reader, where I hope to gain further insight into the world of publishing and social media from a seasoned newcomer. In addition, I’ve gained an even deeper appreciate for the conversational nature of ‘Web. 2.0.’ My opening comment about “controlled serendipity” was informed by an online debate between two well-known reporters/bloggers — In fact, Packer went on to continue the conversation earlier this week — and my rediscovery of Schembari’s presence in the social media sphere came out of a chain reaction of links on tumblr, twitter and several websites from HarperStudio, Stier, Digital Book World and Schembari herself. Long live the semantic web!