re: Interesting navigationsal metaphors?

Rob Raisch (raisch@internet.com)
Thu, 15 Dec 1994 15:53:35 -0800

> From: Peter.Adams@mail.cc.trincoll.edu
> The only control users have with mosaic, is to change the font, turn
> off the images, and to change the background color of the screen. The user
> has no-control over the HTML - which is entirely in the publisher's hands.
> Each new version of HTML gives the publisher more and more control over
> layout.

<LAUGH> What browser do you use, Peter? As a user of the standard www text
browser, NCSA Mosaic, enhanced NCSA Mosaic and the new Netscape, I can state
categorically that I have complete and total control over the content,
presentation and
further distribution of any information I receive via the Web.

> What exactly are your complaints about using the WWW as a publishing tool
> at this time?

Subject of another discussion no doubt, but let's just say that "publishing"
using these tools reduces the role of the publisher to that of an editor.

I belive that Publishing is the exercise of control over three fundamentally
chaotic things:

the creative chaos of the author,

the distribution chaos of the marketplace,

and the presentational chaos of the medium.

The "publishing tools" of the current Internet rob the publisher of any control
over the presentation or futher distribution of the product, thus reducing the
role of the publisher to that of an editor -- controlling only the intellectual
content of the first instance of the product. This reduction of
responsibility is the single most important reason why no major publisher is
using the global Internet as a distribution channel for their products.

Now you tell me, in light of this simple analysis, why there is any reason
whatsoever for the traditional publisher to exist at all. Publishing is about
control, the Internet is about freedom.

Now, having said that, I will also say that I have the answer, as well. I know
how to protect intellectual property in light of the uncontrollable nature of
digital information and if you are a publisher of greater than 100million in
annual revenues, I will discuss this solution with you under Non-disclosure.
</rr> -- Rob Raisch, The Internet Company