The number of rock simple yet high concept all text web sites set in Palatino just doubled, with the launch of Seedy Stories. The site, built by Richard Mavis, is a sort of mini-mad-lib machine, which asks you the six basic questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how. You can enter as many answers as you’d like, and see random combinations of responses drawn from all answers.
It’s intended as an idea generator, meant to spark thought through permutation, combination, and juxtaposition; a sort of constrained bibliomancy. It just launched, and doesn’t have a lot of content yet; it’ll be interesting to see how it feels when more people have contributed. I’d like to see some ways to interact with other users, which may be forthcoming: Richard says he’ll be adding features regularly.
I’d be interested to see what sort of creative writing competitions could be formed around this; currently its output reminds me a bit of Wired’s six-word stories.