Sea Of Content

OK... picture a bit of "information" (a resource) as a "chunk" of info. A Web page (an HTML file) could look like an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, with writing. A movie could look like a reel of film. A sound would look like a line (but for simplicity, we'll wind it up and make it flat, like a disc). There's probably lots of this stuff "out there." And some of it references others of it.

Certain essays might reference certain other essays. Certain cartoons (like the Simpsons) might reference a movie (or three). There could even be a reference from the pelican flying through the background of a movie to a page in the EncyclopaediaBritannica.

Lay all this "stuff" on the floor (it's a big floor), then stand on your desk (watch your head) and look down at it. That's a bunch of stuff, huh? Now pretend you have to look at it through a 2-d square about the size of your typical browser.

Before I get much further, I ought to give some credit:

Dr. Jay Bolter [http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~bolter/]
Dr. Colin Potts [http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Colin.Potts/]
the Think Link project [http://www.cc.gatech.edu/computing/classes/RWL/Projects/thinklink.proj.page.html]

OK, so you've got this huge sea of content, and this little teeny tiny space in which to look at it. You've got 1-d things (like text, or audio) referencing 2-d things (like a face in a picture of a crowd) referencing 3-d things (like the pelican flying through the back of a movie)... and not all of these things are gonna be around forever. Some things are very timely, like the news -- you might get a few hours out of some stories, weeks from others, while some may last forever. Some things are very abstract, like the pelican in the movie (perhaps a series of 2-d targets). Much of it is kinda straightforward (fortunately), like the current state of HTML.

Problems:

What does it mean to link to something? Linking to a whole PAGE is easy. Linking to a specific bit of text on that page (without the page itself) is more difficult.
What does it mean to be referenced by something? How does the movie know that the pelican is meaningful?

Wiki could certainly use MoreSophisticatedReferencing, addressing only the texty-realm of the SeaOfContent, but eventually we'll want more.

DaveHarris mentioned having an IntelligentBrowser (seems more like a PresentationAgent to me) give you the things you want to see. Browser may be something of a misnomer, though; here, the "browser" would really be wiki, dishing out pages to the idiot-box before your eyes. At any rate... the intelligent browser would serve as your guide through the sea of content.

It could either show more than or less than the document's author intended. Of course, in the sea of content, authors take a backseat to structure. Wiki makes a good sea of content (but the browsing's still a bit slow).

-- AustinDavid

I found the RemembranceAgent? useful for browsing through a huge sea of text files. Too bad it runs only on Linux. I have to use Windows at work. Check out http://rhodes.www.media.mit.edu/people/rhodes/RA/ -- FrankGerhardt