HT'96 keynote: exhort 12

Part 4: Exhortations (12 of 18)

Now I want to change gears slightly to look more at human activity and what hypermedia might have to do with that. (That is, human activity outside the use of technology.) On the web, one often hears a distinction made between two perspectives. The predominant one is an "information" perspective where activities include advertising, "information seeking," and "content creation." (I love the term "content," as though people's authoring is a matter of filling containers.) A less prevalent perspective is that of "communication," though of course, email is still a large part of internet use. Here one begins to see activities that are associated with the forming of communities, like collaborating, mobilizing and volunteering. My question is what role hypermedia is having and might have in supporting those activities.

Last modified: Mon Sep 23 11:49:39 1996
Randy Trigg trigg@workpractice.com