The Stream vs. The Space (2016)
June, 2016.
DebateGraph asks us to go back to thinking about the spatial display of information even as we have become accustomed to the chronological access information access method, even more so with the advent of the Stream.
In fact, I think you could argue that the information fight of the early 21st Century is between the Stream and the Space. All of social media is predicated on the Stream, one datapoint after another, flowing down the river of time like so many shoeboxes and as undiscriminating. One contains a cat video, the next a report of the refugee crisis, the third the top fifty celebrities you can’t ignore this year.
The Stream has so far conquered the Space. Newspapers, print newspapers, and to a lesser extent websites, used to be maps; above the fold, below the fold, larger font sizes, smaller font sizes, on page one or thirty-one, the author prominently displayed, all indications of relative importance. The Stream gobbled that up. DebateGraph attempts to return Space to information and does so with a system of "bubbles" and links, bubbles as building blocks in maps of thought, knowledge, discussion and action.
updated December, 2016.