Ted Nelson's colours

This morning in a plenary at ichim05, Ted Nelson http://www.xanadu.net/ challenged us to think beyond the  Web [as implemented] to a richer and more complex model of hypertext authorship and experience. Pushing beyond unidirectional, single-target links, his proposal for "Trans-citation" builds on the premises that "documents" are built on precident (in all aspects of its meaning, including historical citations and chronological developments), that incorporation is a fundamental part of the act of authorship, and that access to a source in its original context is a fundamental part of "reading" in an environment of networked information.

Tools that enable links back to the original document and support such creative recombination would move us beyond "documents" to exploit some of the networked and interactive potential of networked information. But as Ted says, envisioning such a new mode of navigation and aauthorship is like envisioning a new colour. It demands a leap of faith and imagination.

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