As a child, I was fascinated by the story of a genie who would bring a magic carpet that could whisk me anywhere I wanted to go in the universe. While on this carpet, I could even travel into the past and go visit the future. Some three years ago, the opposite happened. Instead of a carpet taking me where I wanted to go, the genie brought the universe to me. The genie had replaced the carpet with this thing called on-line.
The carpet ride had been fueled just by my imagination. The on-line ride, however, required me to to buy computers and modems and peck at this thing called a keyboard. The genie was even craftier. He convinced many that I would substitute the product of my imagination with this thing called content. He said to them that content could be anything they wanted it to be. They could even imagine it for me. He said I wouldn't mind.
For a while I thought this content was real cooooool. At a nickel a minute, I spent hours enjoying this cool content. But soon, I had progressed to waaay-coool, while they were still stuck in cool. I got tired of waiting for the cool stuff to appear and began to hate how they had structured and organized this thing they called content. They gave me a book (with buttons), or a TV show (more buttons), or a movie (more buttons, of course) or plain writing (with buttons they call hyperlinks). I was spending more time figuring out how they wanted me to proceed rather than getting what I wanted. Either I got too much or I got too little.
Everyone agrees with me when I say that writing an article for a newsletter is different from writing a movie script or a TV serial. Everyone also agrees with me that nobody has figured out how to really write for this thing called on-line.
My experience with the magic carpet holds three clues for on-line content:
- My trips were always complete. When I saw a fight between the slaves and the lions, I saw it to the end. I never jumped to see the pedigree of the lion or the weight of the slave in the middle of a fight. I consider links in the text as totally unnecessary. All links should be footnotes. And can't I ask for and get a story only or a story with links?
- My trips were always fast. I didn't wait minutes to see, with my eyes closed, pictures that were 32-bit color at 35 frames a second. I think I saw the pictures without worrying about the color. The context made the picture for me. Why cannot I focus that part of the screen that I want to look at closer? Why can I not get thumbnails to keep the on-line process up-to-speed with my thinking speed?
- My trips always included me in a major role. I was the king, the knight or the crafty mouse. And, of course, I always won. I have never found an on-line experience that was truly participatory in the sense.
Where is the Chaplin or the Griffith of on-line when I really want and need him? I am willing to let others imagine for me, but I haven't found anyone worthy of this trust. I want my imagination back.
-----Ajay Bhatla is developing online strategies for Citicorp
