This is an extract from a blog post that appeared in January 2010.

This post discusses the debategraph software as an example of an application that could define a possible future for digital publishing (and thus knowledge networks) or blogging (either as a blog navigation tool or as a new way to blog) or both. It would work very well on a tablet.

Digital Publishing/knowledge networks

As you may remember I outlined my idea for 3d Web-based information networks in August of 2009 as a possible future for digital publishing.  To save you the bother of going to the post here’s the relevant quote:

In general, a 3D knowledge mapping tool would start with a node (any node) and allow the author(s) of the network to start adding links in 3D. The color and thickness of the links would have meaning (e.g. importance) and any node can have attached text/illustrations.

The exciting part comes would come when 3D networks “bump” into each other – that is to say, a link can be made from a node on one network to a node on another. A grappling hook link.

Envisage this then – from anywhere using a Web browser, I go to a central website. I type in a search term – “quantum mechanics.” A 3D network appears with “quantum mechanics” at its center. Links branch off in 3D in all directions – the length of links, their color, their distance front to back showing the relative importance of the nodes as decided by the authors of the network. I rotate the network, fly through it, expand node clusters to show more detail, arrive at my destination, click on it and read the page I am looking for.

As I leave I notice a yellow link – the color for a grappling hook link. I follow it and end up in another network, perhaps a network on “general relativity,” the other great pillar of modern theoretical physics.

If the knowledge collection is already complete then the translation of this knowledge collection (the printed book) can be another form of digital publishing. If it starts from scratch there must be any number of ways of starting it – a kind of 3D wiki comes to mind. The freemium business model could apply in either case or it could just be free.

Obviously we can’t call this an ebook – call it a knet (knowledge net).

Then I discovered debategraph.org. [...] You can see the similarities. I got in touch with the folks behind debategraph and have kept in touch with them ever since.