Repurposing Old Paradigms

A classic example is film. It was several decades before sound was introduced, even thought the technology, in the form of the gramophone, existed since the beginning of film. None of the early pioneers, thought of recording the sound track and dialogue on a gramophone to be played in conjunction with the film. Furthermore during the first decade or so, content was mostly limited to recording real life scenes, such traffic, or a horse galloping. They simply repurposed the photography paradigm.

Repurposing old paradigms is a necessary first step in exploring new media, for any journey has to begin from a known point. The WEB is our newest media, and the known points where we start from is print and hypertext. Many WEB sites are still based on the print paradigm, many more are based on the hypertext paradigm, but few are truly interactive. While there is no great shame in this and a lot of good content is in these sites, it is time to diverge from the established paradigm and experiment with new forms, such as adaptive interactivity.