Text is linear

Text is unlinear

Text is said to be unlinear

Text is often said to be unlinear

Text is unlinear when written on paper

Digital text is different.

Digital text is more flexible.

Digital text is moveable.

Digital text is above all…hyper.

Digital hypertext is above all…

hypertext is above all…

hypertext can link

hypertext can link

here

here

or here…

virtually anywhere

anywhere virtually

anywhere virtual

The WayBack Machine

http://yahoo.com

Take Me Back

Oct 17, 1996

Yahoo

View Source

Most early websites were written in HTML

HTML

HTML was designed to define the structure of a web document.

p is a structural element referring to “paragraph”

LI

LI is also a structural element referring to “List Item”

As HTML expanded, more elements were added.

Including stylistic elements like B for bold and I for italics

Suck elements defined how content would be formatted.

In other words, form and content became inseparable in HTML

Digital Text can do better.

Form and content can be separated.

http://www.cnn.com

RSS XML

View Source

XML was designed to do just that.

http://www.cnn.com/?eref=rss_topstories

same with

CNN.com

and

and virtually all other elements in this document.

They describe the content, not the form.

So the data can be exported,

free of formatting constraints.

Latest News

Anthro Blogs (124)

Savage Minds

8apps: Social Networking for Productive People

WORLD CHANGING ANOTHER WORLD IS HERE

Antrho Journals (124)

University of California Press

Journals Digital Publishing

Current Anthropology

AESonline.org

Google

With form separated from content, users did not need to know complicated code to upload content to the web,

I’m Feeling Lucky

Create Blog

Name Your Blog

Beyond Etext

http://beyondetext.blogspot.com

Choose a template

Your blog has been created!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Hello World!

POSTED BY PROFESSOR WESCH AT 8:14 PM 0 COMMENTS

There’s a blog born every half second

and it’s not just text…Search

YouTube

Broadcast Yourself

This is a video response to The Beauty of Being Human

flickr

Ahoy mwesch!

Upload Photos

Anthropology club

Created by you.

KSU Anthropology club

Club Photos

Google

XML facilitates automated data exchange

two sites can “mash” data together

flickr maps

I’m Feeling Lucky

Limelight

Fluffy and white

Brushy Creek

Tokyo Delve’s Sushi B..

Who will organize all of this data?

TAG

del.icio.us

digital ethnography hypermedia anthropology

save

Who will organize all of this data?

We will.

You will.

Google

XML + U & Me create a database-backed web

a database-backed web is different

the web is different

the web

we are the web

I’m Feeling Lucky

WIRED

We Are the Web

by Kevin Kelly

“When we post and then tag pictures

teaching the Machine to give names,

we are teaching the Machine.

Each time we forge a link,

we teach it an idea.

Think of the 100 billion times per day humans click on a Web page

teaching the Machine”

the Machine

Diigo

Highlight

Highlight and Sticky note

Mwesch’s private note

the machine is us

Digital text is no longer just linking information…

Hypertext is no longer just linking information…

The Web is no longer just linking information…

The Web is linking people…

Web 2.0 is linking people…

…people sharing, tracing, and collaborating…

Wikipedia

Web 2.0

edit this page

We’ll need to rethink a few things…

We’ll need to rethink copyright

We’ll need to rethink authorship

We’ll need to rethink identity

We’ll need to rethink ethics

We’ll need to rethink aesthetics

We’ll need to rethink rhetorics

We’ll need to rethink governance

We’ll need to rethink privacy

We’ll need to rethink commerce

We’ll need to rethink love

We’ll need to rethink family

We’ll need to rethink ourselves.

by
Michael Wesch
Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology
Kansas State University