In the previous posts I've said a few things, in passing, about how the web is more than just 'new media'. The idea generally has been that the web provides some key elements that previous systems lacked. Here I gather these thoughts in a more systematic way.
My aim is to distinguish between two types of media. The first, I call 'on-demand' in a general sense; the second is the web. Both types are on-demand (and both are 'new media'), but the web has some aspects that are unique to it.
On-demand media generally:
In 'on-demand' media users choose content from a potentially large pool. Content is delivered electronically and instantly, and consumption starts immediately (or soon) after selection.
On-demand media have three key features.
- There is unlimited space. Compared to traditional media, on-demand media have few restrictions, technical or commercial, on the amount or length of content that can be published.
- This in turn is turn gives rise to aggregates, or what Lev Manovich called 'the database form' and I have called 'aggregates'. In a sea of content, users need lists (whether fixed, personalised or based on search engines) that let them get to content.
- Aggregates (e.g. menus) rely on a way of linking to allow users to make their choices. Users need to understand the conventions used.
Examples of this type of media include proprietary online systems like Compuserve, bulletin boards, legal and business online databases, and IPTV (in the the telco/MSO product sense, not as 'straming'). I leave out CD-ROMs, DVDs and old hypertext systems like HyperCard because I want to concentrate on media delivered electronically; otherwise there is no sense of unlimited space.
The web
The web introduces two key additional factors:
- Plurality: anybody can publish world-wide, easily.
- A universal linking system, relying on hyperlinks and stable URLs, that allows any page published by anyone to refer to any other page published by anybody else. Hyperlinks are not just references; for audiences, they provide a way of selecting, and then immediately consuming, content that is linked to--all with minimal effort.
- A universal platform with millions of users: To access a page, I generally don't need any new equipment or software apart from what everybody already has.
These two simple features have dramatic consequences. The web:
- Has virtually infinite choice. In other on-demand models users may have had more options than they cared about, but choice was limited by the number of assets the systems' owners could and wanted to host. On the web, publishers' infinite space is matched by audiences infinite choice.
- Is chaotic and distributed. There is no single entity that is responsible for all the content that is available.
- Is levelling: Anybody can publish content. Reach is a result of popularity, which may be achieved without a budget (however a few sources will account for most traffic -- see Clay Shirky on power laws and Chris Anderson on the Long Tail).
- Is uncontrollable: There’s no censorship. It’s full of inappropriate content.
All of this amounts to a qualitatively different kind of experience to what any walled garden, no matter how large, can provide.
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