After reading an article on the web being a place (http://www.smallpieces.com/), I feel like I've added to my opinions many different perspectives about the web. Weinberger's example of the professor and the underpaid graduate student was brilliant. He pointed out that we are the ones that go to the information on the web, but in reality the information comes to us. Is the web a place? I think I am confused now. Why do we use "go to" and "leave" when we use the Internet? Where did these terms come from? The web has no space or distance because everything is in one place. Weinberger's ideas really made me think.
Posted by at December 8, 2002 12:29 PM | TrackBackVincent, There are people who say that the language we use to talk about the Web (the "enter" and "leave") is more or less an accident and that we shouldn't make too much of it. But I tend to disagree.
For me the question is: Do we make progress in understanding the Web by taking its spatial language seriously? And I think we do: the structure of the Web mirrors that of real-world space in that both connect places in ways we can navigate. Obviously there are MANY differences, too, but suppose we learn from our Web experience that real world space isn't actually about a uniform, measurable set of dimensions but is about the ways in which places we care about are connected?
Posted by: David Weinberger on December 9, 2002 05:32 PMI'll agree that the terminology is frightening similiar, and that the web holds similarities to each of our real worlds. However, I cannot hold the web as a place in my heart.
Not to sound crude, but to call the web a place is somewhat degrading to the world around us. It's as if visiting an interactive site featuring the grand canyon with your family in the room is comparable to a visit to the canyon itself.
The web is a pseudo-place. A summary of the real world in digital form.
note: My opinions may change, as David's book has not yet arrived in the mail :)
Posted by: steyblind on December 10, 2002 09:23 AMI have to agree with Weinburger's comments on space in www.smallpieces.com. It reminded me of the visually interactive structure of network that I saw in the movie "Jurassic Park." The main files were images of buildings, and each building's files had sub files on things such as "security," and "electricity," which also had specific files on type of "electricity," such as door locks, and lights.
I thought it was a good example of "going to," "leave," and "visual measurable set of dimensions" of what we are interested in.
It seems to me that things that we are interested in are structured by the way we view them. The web is interactive with no defined set of dimensions, which brings digital images from around the world to us.
Space in digital form and real world are different things. In real world space, it takes time to go to that place, whereas digital form seems to have no distance, structured only by concept.