Place and Space

Peter peterme Merholz, noticing a blogthread between me and Jonathan Peterson, in an email points to a rich thread of comments on his site about whether it makes sense to think about the Web (and other “information spaces”) as spaces at all. What a bunch of smart people! He suggests starting with the “Stewart’s Chagrin” comment. (Peter also linked to my upcoming book’s discussion of the Web as a place, which generated some good discussion too … citing sources I didn’t know about when I wrote the book. Ulp.)

Jonathan Peterson has counter-blogged:

Use of physical metaphors for information relationships far pre-dates the web, likely even written speech (memory palaces, etc.). While the creation of navigation metaphors based on real-world spaces is convenient, the “placeness” of much of the web cannot be attributed to navigation. Usenet groups have “place” though their metaphor varies depending on the user’s choice of newsreader. Blogspaces are not planned but aggregate through interlinkage of interests. etc.

Good point.

I think the “placeness” if the Web has something to do with the persistence of links. I can “navigate” through a dictionary by using the thumb index, but hyperlinks on the Web provide not just a random and arbitrary way to move, but an pre-existing way to move. I think it also has something to do with the fact that because Web pages are usually carefully formatted by their authors, they don’t feel like information sitting in a database or file system waiting to be retrieved. They feel like they exist with “bodies,” not as mere abstract information or bits. Or something.

Categories: Uncategorized dw