• Video by Mike Wesch
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Main content text is shown in speach marks

[Video starts – music]

“Text is linear”

“Text in unlinear”

 “Said to be”

 “often said to be”

”when written on paper”

”Digital text is different”

“Digital text is more flexible”

 “Digital text is movable”

“Digital text is above all… hyper.”

”Digital hypertext is above all”

“Hypertext is above all”]

“Hypertext can link”

“link”

 “here”

“here”

“or here”

“virtually anywhere”

“anywhere virtually”

“anywhere virtual”

“take me back”

“View Source”

“Most early websites were written in HTML”

 “HTML was designed to define the structure of a document”

“<p> is a structural element referring to a Paragraph”

“<LI>is a structural element referring to a list item”

 “As HTML expanded more elements were added including stylistic elements”

“like <b> for bold”

 “and <i> for italic”

“Such elements decided how content would be formatted”

 “in other words form and content became inseparable in html”

“digital text can do better. Form and content can be separated”

“XML was designed to do just that”

<title>

 “Title does not define the form. It defines the content

 <link>

“same with <Link>”

<description>]

“and <description>”

 “and virtually all other elements in this document”

“They describe the content. Not the form

“So the data can be exported free of formatting constraints”

“With form separated from content, users did not need to know complicated code to upload content to the web”

 “and its not just text…”

 “upload photograph”

“xml facilitates automated data exchange”

“Two sites can “mash” data together”

 “flickr maps”

 “who will manage all this data?”

 “tag” 

 “we will.”

“you will.”

“xml and u & me create a database-backed web”

”a database-backed web is different”

”the web is different”

”we are the web”

“when we post and then tag pictures”

“we are teaching the Machine”

”Each time we forge a link”

”We teach it an idea”

”Think of the 100 billion times per day humans click on a web page”

 “we are teaching the Machine”

”the machine is using us”

 “the machine is us”

“Digital text is no longer just linking information”

“hypertext  is no longer just linking information”

 “the web is no longer just linking information”

”the web is linking information”

”the web is linking people…”

”web 2.O is linking people…”

 “people sharing, trading, collaborating”

 “edit this page”

“We’ll need to rethink a few things”

“We’ll need to rethink copyright”

“We’ll need to rethink authorship”

“We’ll need to rethink identity”

“We’ll need to rethink ethics”

“We’ll need to rethink aesthetics”

“We’ll need to rethink rhetorics”

“We’ll need to rethink governance”

“We’ll need to rethink privacy”

 “We’ll need to rethink commerce”

 “We’ll need to rethink love”

“We’ll need to rethink family”

“We’ll need to rethink ourselves.”

[Video Ends]

[Credits]

By Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor or Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University