Discussion Questions
Three of these readings are short articles from the mid-1980s and concern
Videotext -- a much hyped technology of the early 1980s intended to bring
computer communications into living rooms across America. It's not much
remembered today, but it has a lot to teach us about current approaches to the
Internet.
The other one is taken from the most famous early book on what the authors
were then calling "Computer Conferencing" -- and what we would today call email,
newsgroups, instant messaging, hypertext and computer supported cooperative
work. The book itself is long and heavy, so I picked the light hearted
futuristic newspaper articles written by the authors to capture predict
developments during the twenty years we just experienced.
- What were the similarities and differences between Videotext (including
the French version Minitel) and the Internet of the 1990s. Include both
intended/actual uses and the basic technologies.
- What was special about the French approach to Videotext. What did its
planners hope for? What did they get?
- Why didn't videotext take off more generally? What technologies did
Americans of the 1980s actually turn to in order to bank at home, shop at
home, etc?
- Read the predictions of Hiltz & Turoff carefully. As we did with Evans,
let's sort them into categories -- Happened, Still Might Happen, and No Way.
- Can you generalize anything about how they were wrong and how they were
right? Timing is one thing, another is social effects vs. technical
predictions.
- Can predictions like this shape actual developments?
Resources
 | Only in the last few years has the Internet begun to overtake Minitel usage
in France. There are a bunch of Mintel
links here. Younger people are now using PC emulation to access it, and it
is gradually merging into the web. See
this Wired
article for details. |
|
