Watched the Adrian Miles lecture today that was posted on the blog. Found it pretty interesting. First he spoke about the Internet being a hypertext system. I didn’t really understand what he meant by this at first I think it has something to do with sites being internally linked. Will do more research into this.
He gave us some tips for our essays, including that every hypertext should include the following: model narratives, dialogue and writing, model pathways and marginalia. The idea of having a narrative in our essays both excited and scared me a little because I didn’t really understand how to include a narrative- and was even more confused when he said that hypertext narratives were “only middle” (as opposed to beginning, middle and end”) and made me think of that quote from Jean-Luc Godard (below):
“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.”
Something that really struck home with me was about language writing itself. We believe we are in control (of words, of a story) and an idea pops into your head and completely changes your way of thinking. Therefore, anything you set out to write could, by the end, be completely different to what you expected.
I sort of just realised how crap my blog is. This is only my 3rd post ever and I’ve had it for 2 weeks (and my 2nd post was written up like half an hour ago). Why haven’t I been blogging? Too much time wasted on Facebook, that’s why. The blog will improve I promise.
The term “Web 2.0″ was coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci. She claimed that the internet would become an “ether through which interactivity happens’. DiNucci’s predictions were correct and today what is widely known as “Web 2.0″ lends itself greatly to interactivity. It is a place where users feel as though they are a part of a community where through collaboration they create content. The internet has changed from being a hub for receiving information to one where information is shared. For example, it is now easy for someone to create a “blog” (also an aspect of Web 2.0) for them to write all of their political views for anyone with access to the internet to read. Anyone in the world can then make a comment on these views and spur debate. An important aspect of “community” on the Web is social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. Users of these can chat instantly with their friends, share photos and videos, invite friends to events and more. By becoming a world of interconnectivity and participation, the Web has truly evolved from its original self, now known as “Web 1.0″ which was predominantly static screens of information that could not be edited.
