I've been tempted once or twice, but I don't Twitter. However, each time I log onto Facebook, inevitably I see at least one or two twittered status updates from LIFTers. And while it's constantly mentioned across the blogosphere, I was still surprised by Compete's estimate that twitter.com visits have experienced growth exceeding 1650% in the year since Twitter's explosion at SXSW 2007.

Today I'm thinking about Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, which - as its 1971 film trailer exclaims - "covers 96 of the most critical hours in world history!" and inspired this post's title. A&E, the cable television channel, is premiering a re-make of this classic next month. But what about Twitter?

At the newly re-launched Project New Media Literacies blog at MIT, two short (and work-in-progress) videos featuring several comic book artists appeared yesterday. Although I've never been an avid comic book reader, I enjoyed hearing these artists' thoughts.

In the first video (Flash version), Mickey Duzyj and Nick Bertozzi speak on the narrative structure of comics. With films like Sin City and 300 bringing qualities of graphic novels to the big screen, I found it interesting to see the reverse with books like David Mamet's On Directing Film and Robert McKee's Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting helping to shape storytelling in comics. Plus, I loved the exercise of cutting up a comic strip, rearranging its panels, and then filling in the blanks to make sense of the new order.

The second video (Flash version) features Dean Haspiel describing Nick's comic designed as a fold-out map, reminding me of the role an interface can play in storytelling. See my post here on the Google Maps-based story, "The 21 Steps."

Earlier this week, alternate reality game (ARG) creator Six to Start and publisher Penguin UK launched "We Tell Stories," a series of six digital short stories released over six weeks. Check out the site and you'll find the first tale, "The 21 Steps" by spy writer Charles Cumming. Told as a layer on top of Google Maps imagery, it incorporates movement throughout the adventure - definitely a unique twist on a familiar interface.

Despite the project's "Six Authors. Six Stories. Six Weeks." tagline, the site's About page notes that "somewhere on the internet is a secret seventh story, a mysterious tale involving a vaguely familiar girl who has a habit of getting herself lost." With that said, think "Alice in Wonderland" and don't overlook any details if you decide to dive in.

For insights into the development of the experience, visit these posts on the blogs of Adrian Hon, Six to Start, and Penguin UK. Also check out this post by LIFT08 speaker Ewan McIntosh.

Considering that the two most popular LIFT08 videos cover gaming, I'll pass along this recent post from Future-Making Serious Games.

Quirkat, a Jordanian interactive firm, and BreakAway, Ltd, a US-based game developer, announced last month the release of the world's first trilingual mobile game. Offering gameplay in Arabic, English, and French, Tariq's Treasure is available through a distribution network of regional mobile operators across the Middle East. Quirkat also recently launched a new online gaming portal, Fuzztak.

The firms previously collaborated on last year's Arabian Lords. In this bilingual (Arabic/English) real-time strategy game for PC, players become an "enterprising merchant lord" in the 7th through 13th centuries.

If you've been watching the US presidential race, you know that this past week included a late Tuesday night as many people stayed up to track the state primary results in Texas and Ohio.

A discussion with friends the next day reminded me of the most common questions I received at LIFT08: Which candidate do I support? And who do I think will win? While that's not the point of this post, I'm sure many LIFTers are likely interested in the intersection of participatory culture and the candidates' campaigns this year.

Having survived today's field trip to CERN and now preparing for the trip home, I took a moment to reflect on the last few days. Thinking back to fondue night and knowing that a picture is worth (at least) a thousand words, I've found that this simplicity (via schickr's photostream) does more justice than a written description ever could.

In fact, viewing the growing number of photos from this week in Geneva, I began to think of my first LIFT experience in terms of numbers and images. Diving into my notes, I found this sampling of statistics presented (from "A Glimpse of Asia"):

- An estimated 80-100 million mobile users connect to the internet in China each month (Marc Laperrouza)

- 98% of 20-somethings in Korea are members of Cyworld (Heewon Kim)

- Bhutan developed its Dzongkha Linux in 13 months for $80,000 (Gen Kanai)

When it comes to images of this year's LIFT, the army of photographers on Flickr have it covered. But consider LIFT08 by the numbers: how many kilos of cheese, how many liters of coffee, etc... Once the dust settles, perhaps a few more "behind-the-scenes" statistical factoids might emerge?

Many of you have likely heard Laurent's good news: LIFT set a new record for participants with 600+ people registering. However, there's also good news for those who won't be able to join us this week.

Students attending LIFT08 - thanks to the generosity of the Gebert Rüf Stiftung and its fellowship program - will be blogging all of this year's speeches right here on the Community Blog. (And for cheese lovers out there, I'll be sharing an in-depth account of fondue night.)

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