Rethinking physical text
Physical text is dead (as in static). Information is alive. It’s dynamic. The previous post is a piece I wrote as guest columnist for Klue. Information is constantly evolving. What bugs me about physical text is that it is one dimensional. And printing URL’s on paper doesnt work either. In most cases it is too long and looks like gibberish to be of any use to someone trying to type it into their browser. So I thought about a way to make the jump. To link physical text to digital information.
Remember ‘Quantum Leap’ from the late 80’s? The Quantum Leap Accelerator caused Sam to jump back in time and set certain events right. What is interesting is simply that time is no longer linear. Well, information in the digital age is non-linear as well. We can edit, update & remix information, everytime adding to the pool of knowledge because it is practically impossible to erase previous copies. But how does physical text, which is still a major source of information consumption, benefit from a so called ‘quantum leap’?
This isn’t a new problem. Shotcode is one of many potential solutions helping bridge the physical and digital realms. It requires a camera-phone (which is getting cheaper by the day) and WAP capability. Cheaper phones are starting to have WAP capabilities too, but it’s still nowhere near practical due to data charges.
So there shoud be a simpler opt-in approach that can work on existing infrastructure. I thought of simply using keywords next to sections of the story (much like tags online) that readers can key in to their browser which then open a list of resources tied to that article. The keywords will replace the URL’s (just like tinyurl does online) and create a bridge between physical text and dynamic information.
Having thought about this further, I’ve since come up with more ideas/features to make such a service useful. Ultimately, consumers will decide if this is really as useful as I hope. That is the best way to build something after all.
The Klue column (Dec ‘08) is what I think to be the first (and very elemental) test of the concept. See the sample here (note: this is not the final version of the column)
