Internet Dreams Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors

Rejecting the limiting metaphor of "the information superhighway," the contributors propose four richer metaphors for the evolution of the Internet. The "information superhighway" is a metaphor oft used to describethe internet, used so often that Stefik fears we're in danger ofsubjecting the evolution of the net to the limiting implications of this metaphor. Stefik, along with a host of prescient technothinkers and doers, examine four richer, more powerful metaphorsand their Jungian archetypes that together should expand anyone'sthinking about the cyber world... And those metaphors are: digitallibrary (The Keeper of Knowledge), electronic mail (Communicator), electronic marketplace (Trader), and digital world (Adventurer). The summoning of the archetypes in service of Stefik's argument isless silicon psychobabble than it is a compelling way to organize this book around the very real ways in which the net is being used. Contributors The I-Way as Publishing and Community Memory Vannevar Bush, J. C. R. Licklider, Robert E. Kahn, Joshua Lederberg, John Browning, Scott D. N. Cook, Vicky Reich, Mark Weiser, Ranjit Makkuni * The I-Way as a Communications Medium Lee Sproull, Samer Faraj, Jay Machado, Lynn Conway, Joshua Lederberg * Selling Goods and Services the I-Way Thomas Malone, Joanne Yates, Robert Benjamin, Laura Fillmore, Mark Stefik * The I-Way as a Gateway to Experience Pavel Curtis, Julian Dibbell, Harry Collins, Mark Stefik, John Seeley Brown, William Wulf, Barbara Viglizzo