Rob Walker's Blog, page 45

Rabbit Candle

Object No. 1 of 50

[Bid on this Significant Object, with story by Neil LaBute, here.]

Instead of walking home the way I usually do —  past Maple and cutting over on Ivar before getting to the river — I decided to save a little time and turned right, going down toward the church instead of around it. They were having a yard sale on that scruffy patch of grass on the side of the rectory, near where the old chestnut tree had fallen down back when I was in the third grade. The stump is still...

A note to aspiring Significant Objects contributors

Thanks for volunteering your efforts! As we move ahead into the next phase of the project — we're calling it Significant Objects v2, at the moment — we are indeed lining up a new roster of writers. But before you write in demanding an assignment, please read this.

Significant Objects was originally intended as an experiment exploring the relationship between narrative and value. (In fact, we didn't think many writers would want to participate — before we launched the experiment, we listed 100 ...

The Data: Adjusted Sales Rank

On Friday, I posted an Adjusted Final Price table, which allows us to compare our 100 objects' final prices with their final prices adjusted for Duration Factor. It took a bit of doing, but — after the jump — please find a table which permits comparison between adjusted and nonadjusted sales ranks.

And remember — Significant Objects v2 launches soon. So keep visiting!

ALL TABLES & CHARTS

1. TABLE: Original and Final Price (plus Author & Sales Rank)
2. TABLE: Final Price, Week by Week (plus...

Six-Word Contest… sorta

I say "sorta" because although there really is a contest, the winning story won't be posted to eBay. Why not? Because the Scottish Doll was thrown away, and therefore can't be sold on eBay.

Read about the Scottish Doll's fate here, and then post your 6-word story to the comments section of that post. (Not this one!) At some point soon, a winning story will be picked, and a prize will be awarded.

Help us "tag" our stories!

After several days of scrutinizing price data, it's time to scrutinize the stories themselves. While Josh added "tags" in real time describing each object, lately we've decided it might be useful and interesting to add tags that describe narrative elements and tactics.

Here are some we've come up with — but what we really want is your suggestions. What other story/theme/style tags should we add? (Anything here you think we should delete?)

Adolescence, Anthropomorphism, Bad Parents, Bad...

Average price, week by week

In cleverly devising a way of dealing with the Duration Factor, Josh addressed the potential effect on prices of both increased demand (as more people learned about the project) and dwindling supply (as we ran out of objects). It's assumed that this Duration Factor caused prices to drift upward over time.

But in a comment to that post, reader Mimi offers theory she dubs "the Metal Boot Peak Effect." Basically it suggests that the auction for Metal Boot With Story By Bruce Sterling, for $86...

Update: Significant Objects v2

We're having fun geeking out over the quantitative aspects of Significant Object's experimental phase, and this coming week we'll offer more tables and charts and graphs. We'll also kick off the qualitative analysis (i.e., analyzing the stories' style, mood, voice, and so forth) soon.

At the same time, we're assigning and editing stories for Significant Objects v2: the charitable fund-raising project. We've assigned nearly 20 objects so far, and we've got lots of terrific stories — from...

The Data: Adjusted Final Price

Some of you have speculated that the Significant Object experiment's duration affected sales prices — that is, you've speculated that objects auctioned off in the experiment's first weeks no doubt sold for less, on average, than did objects auctioned off in its final weeks. (The experiment lasted for 19 weeks.) As word of the project spread, opportunities to purchase one of only 100 total objects decreased, and competition thus grew fiercer.

A quick glance at the Final Price, Week by Week...

Thanksgiving Greetings from Significant Objects

We'll be back with a savory table stuffed full of data tomorrow. In the meantime, please enjoy these holiday-appropriate tchotchkes.

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Oh, and if you want to get a jump on the Xmas-shopping crowd tomorrow, why not pick up a Significant Objects Mug Mug today, from Zazzle? Your friends and loved ones will thank you.

The Data: Week by Week

Here's another way to parse the data from the experimental phase of the Significant Objects project. After the jump, you'll discover a table that not only lists the 100 objects, the authors of the 100 stories associated with those objects, and the objects' final auction price. It also lists the week in which each story was published, and its associated object listed for auction on eBay.

The table lists the objects in descending order of final price, but if you click the arrows on the first...