Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A brief history of interactivity

Here is a step-by-step illustration of the evolution of content delivery applications - from the old days of teletype green terminals spouting stock quotes, to today's highly immersive and interactive applications.



The move from text to graphics was a big step in content delivery applications. If a picture was worth a thousand words, the next generation of applications went a step further with sound, video and animation. Multimedia applications had arrived.

Then came the internet, which revolutionized content delivery. The web's HTML pages were easy to link to other pages. Search engines made it easy to look for something on the web.

With the advent of blogs, wikis and social networks the web further evolved to support content creation by everybody.

The web has now spread to a large number of users that consume increasing amounts of content. These users have come to expect their online experiences to be a two-way interactive street.

So, expect to see interactivity entering the mainstream of content delivery.

The six important milestones (text, graphic, multimedia, web, social and interactive) in the history of interactivity conjure up the image of a ladder we are ascending. Just roll your mouse over a step to drill down to a short description.

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