We’ve already mentioned Thaumatrope here on Futurismic, but thanks to the ever-vigilant people at Tor.com we hear that Jetse de Vries – the man behind the forthcoming Shine anthology of optimist sf – is starting another Twitter-based webzine named Outshine, due to launch January 14th; check the Shine anthology blog for submission guidelines.

Two new venues for picofiction, both of them paying markets… is this a fad, or a sign of things to come? I don’t think anyone will deny that you can do amazing things with a short character limit, but hell knows it’ll be tricky to monetise a Twitter feed…

That said, at US$5 for up to 140 characters, Outshine is bloody close to paying SFWA professional rates per-word, and that’s not to be sniffed at!