re: Interesting navigationsal metaphors? re: Interesting navigationsal metaphors?I dunno, Rob...in my mind the current Web setup is perfect for online
publishing. The whole publishing paradigm has been flipped 180 degrees
in the online world.
>Its development is being driven by the wrong side of the equation: the
>user.
It seems like the right side to me. It's the "user" whose interest I am
trying to capture, and the online user is looking for information with
tools that present information in a manner the user has ultimate control
over.
>This is contrary to the interests of
>the publisher whose role is to exercise control over the product.
>
Oh waahhh, the poor publisher/marketer. The concept of creativity has
finally been introduced on a level other than a superficial and abstract
one, and the publisher/marketer is realizing they are no where near as
smart and creative as they had been fooling themselves into thinking
they were when they only had to ram abstract images, mixed liberally
with sex, down the throats of couch pototoes. Actually, the liberal use
of sex was they only thing that held my interest, the rest was so
content free that I always lost interest rather quickly, and in some
cases was so insulted that they would think I would buy that crap--both
the product and the message--that in some cases I wouldn't even bother
to try the product.
>I wish more publishers would realize this, rather than rushing to the
>Web.
I hope they do rush to the Web, but only after they have taken the time
to learn how it works first. Marketers especially have to learn this
fact of Cyberspace and the net.culture that thrives there. They have to
provide content, not hype, and that _is_ perfectly possible with
existing Web servers and browsers in ways that are both visually and
intellectually appealing. By the fact that publishers/marketers are so
up-in-arms about controlling the presentation makes it obvious they
either don't know how or don't have any content to present, and so they
have to stick with the hype (control the presentation) so people don't
see through their empty product.
As has been mentioned by Christina O'Connell and many others on this
list before, people are wasting their time trying to change the online
world to what they think it should be, instead of trying to work with
the way it is. The way it is is what has caused it to grow at the rate
it has been growing. I don't think trying to force the old ways of
doing things is going to work in the newly discovered Cyberspace.
An analogy that comes to mind is the time when Christian missionaries
tried to convert indigenous peoples to the "right" way to view the
world, and sometimes succeeded because the missionaries were seen as
more advanced, more worldly (or simply had more advanced weapons). This
time, however, the missionaries are the publishers/marketers, and the
indigenous peoples are the netizens, and it's the netizens who are more
advanced and worldly (and with the spam-killing cancel-bot, have better
weapons :-)
_dave_(seemingly obligatory and definitely bandwidth wasting .sig)