“The idea: The button is interesting. It has a history, an evolution. It began as a simple on/off device and has become a central part of our human culture. We reach out to manipulate objects. We push buttons and magic things happen. At first, the light goes on. The light goes off. But now, we find our friends and family. We order and ship presents. We launch bombs. The button is the center of our power. This blog/resource/concept is to explore and record the history of the button. That’s all.” (from the History of the Button)

Starter Links: History of the Button

“Information design helps people and organizations achieve understanding through the creation of relevant, clear and memorable information. ‘InfoDesign: Understanding by Design’ is dedicated to the growth and improvement of the information and experience industries through the provision of a centralized online resource that serves all interested audiences. Launched in 2004, the site will continually evolve to meet the needs and desires of its participants. ‘InfoDesign: Understanding by Design’ is a non-profit informational resource.” (from the InfoDesign website.)

Starter Links: InfoDesign

Transliteracies Research Report By Mike Godwin

Blog exploring the intersections between literature, literary practice, and new media technology.

“The science fiction writer Harlen Ellison once described a stunt in which he sat in the window of a bookshop all day writing a story. He was curious about what would happen if writing became a public spectacle rather than the mysterious, solitary endeavor it usually is. That scene piqued my imagination and stuck with me, enough so that when I explored the idea of writing an electronic dissertation in the mid-1990s (at the same time the Web was emerging as a popular medium) I immediately decided do it it “live,â€? in “real timeâ€? on the network. That is, I would simply publish drafts of my work, and revise them, and the whole would take shape as a massive, interlaced hypertext.” (from the author’s blog.)

Starter Links: MGK blog

Group blogging community designed to help foster scholarly dialogue in a digital mileau.

“ElectraPress is a collaborative, open-access scholarly project intended to facilitate the reimagining of academic discourse in digital environments. What’s here at the moment is little more than a few electronic hammers and some virtual nails, but I hope that this site might enable the kinds of free experimentation what will produce a highly integrated collection of resources for the online publication of new scholarly projects. These resources might include – but would hardly be limited to – RSS feeds for scholarly blogs, repositories for digital articles, and an electronic imprint for the publication of monograph-length work of both traditional textual and newer “born digitalâ€? forms.” (from the Electrapress web site.)

Starter Links: ElectraPress | ElectraPess Forum | wiki

Group devoted to studying, understanding, and enabling the evolution of the book in new and multi-media formats.

“Over the next several decades, electronic, screen-based technologies will emerge which preserve all that is good and wonderful about printed books but which add profoundly powerful new capabilities. For example, future books will: – allow authors to express ideas using audio, video and simulations in addition to text and graphics. – contain significant and direct links to materials stored elsewhere on the internet. – create a community of readers and authors by enabling people reading the same document or exploring the same subject area to connect to each other directly over the internet.

While it may be argued that the form of printed books (pages bound together by a spine) was inevitable, screen-based books have no inevitable, physically-imposed form. The challenge confronting us is to develop new forms that empower both authors and readers and enhance intellectual and social discourse throughout society.” (from the Institute of the Future of the Book web site.)

Starter Links: Institute of the Future of the Book Home Page

Online conversation hub devoted to the discussion of a variety new media literature and art works.

“A group blog about computer mediated and computer generated works of many forms: interactive fiction, net.art, electronic poetry, interactive drama, hypertext fiction, computer games of all sorts, shared virtual environments, and more. Andrew, Mary, Michael, Nick, Noah, and Scott all work as both theorists and developers, and are interested in authorship, design, and technology, as well as issues of interaction and reception. about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. ” (from the Grand Text Auto Web Site.)

Starter Links: Grand Text Auto | ifwiki.org

Group blog of writers working in digital new media:

”... collaborative transdisciplinary blog about the impact of digital technologies upon writing and lived experience. We talk about writing and reading in the context of ‘new and old’ media, transliteracy, craft, art, process and practice, social networks, cooperation and collaboration, narrative and memory, human computer interaction, imagination, nature, mind, body, and spirit.” (from home page)

Starter Links: Home page