Thursday, November 03, 2005
The Web as a Medium
The web is more like a medium than a program.
A program has a set of expectations on user interactions and well-formed steps that must be followed to obtain certain results. If the program has been designed to do a certain thing, then you have to struggle against the program if you would like it to do something different.
A medium has a more liquid nature.
A medium is based more on conventions than strict rules.
A medium suggests, but doesn't enforce.
A medium is made for people to move through it, leave signs, start jobs and leave them there to be completed later.. maybe for someone else to see them and add their own bit to them. A medium is somewhat loose and open-ended, allowing continuous semantic hijacking by its users.
A program has a set of expectations on user interactions and well-formed steps that must be followed to obtain certain results. If the program has been designed to do a certain thing, then you have to struggle against the program if you would like it to do something different.
A medium has a more liquid nature.
A medium is based more on conventions than strict rules.
A medium suggests, but doesn't enforce.
A medium is made for people to move through it, leave signs, start jobs and leave them there to be completed later.. maybe for someone else to see them and add their own bit to them. A medium is somewhat loose and open-ended, allowing continuous semantic hijacking by its users.
