Don’t Kick Food!

In this interview with Sean Stewart about alternate reality gaming, points are raised about the nature of the internet and its use suggested a different way of storytelling. This kind of stuff is a combination of hypertext novels and gaming (or maybe it’s gaming with hypertext novel-like elements?).

Stewart’s idea that blogs are “front porch space” is interesting, too. I agree that blogs are often perceived as such, but does the analogy holds up under scrutiny? The things you do on your front porch aren’t preserved and made available to anyone with a computer and internet access. Is this actually an expansion of that space (freeing it from the removal of phsyical restraints), or is the front-porch metaphor an easy way to describe it, glossing over the existence of some fundamental difference between the two?

I debated posting this link later (when we talk about gaming), but I thought the ideas of technology and its use shaping the narrative might be useful to the class now.