In a widely reported presentation to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Cerf expressed last week the belief that we live ‘in a digital Dark Age’ in which ‘an information black hole’ threatens to create ‘a forgotten generation, or even a forgotten century’. You couldn’t frame the problem in more alarmist, apocalyptic terms. But is true? Yes and no. Consider a written English text that exists in two formats: as an analogue document printed on paper and as a digital document written in Word Perfect 2.0 and stored on a 3½ inch floppy disc formatted by a 1989 Apple Macintosh.

A few visits later to websites of a couple of global curators, and it seems the thing to pull information together to make understanding a breeze, with superb bursts of colour or line drawings or typography or even emblems of some kind or another, is the Infographic.

I swore I’d never sign up to Twitter. ‘What’s the point?’ I’d ask. ‘It’s just status updates like Facebook.’ In June 2009 I found myself deciding what my Twitter username would be. What bought about this change in attitude? Well, Grods, if you must know. Scott made the announcement that Bron had signed up. She […]

Without a doubt the best discovery I have made on the internet of late is Gogol Bordello.* Here they are with ‘Immigraniada’: Oh, and look, here they are again, ‘When universes collide’: How ‘bout you? Got any Best of the Internet to share? Videos, critiques, music, blogs, other hidden jewels, they’re all welcome, just leave […]

A brandspanking new Meanland post: The idea that the printing press democratised reading, writing and ideas is widely embraced. This is not to suggest it was – or remains in its internet incarnation – politically progressive or, indeed, revolutionary. Matthew Battles reminds us: The printing press never only produced the kind of deep reading we […]

Unless you slept through yesterday (or for some incomprehensible reason went offline), you probably heard how Amazon won the book wars, summed up so succinctly in this New York Times headline: E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon: Monday was a day for the history books — if those will even exist in the future. Amazon.com, one […]

A writer needs their tools. Chisel Quill Ink Parchment Chalk Pencil Paper Crayon Biro Fountain pen Notepad Typewriter Word Processor ThinkPad Personal Computer Macbook iPhone iPad Tablet What do all these tools have in common? They help us make permanent that thing that makes us human: language. Language marshalled into journals, books, literary fiction, non-fiction, […]

Writing for the Internet is not like writing a novel. Seriously, they’re galaxies apart. Writing an essay and writing a blog post aren’t galaxies apart; more like the distance between the nearest open cluster of stars and me. Clearly, I’m referring to non-fiction here, rather than fiction or poetry or experimental writing. I’m not talking […]