Social layer for digital media
Open Culture has an excellent article by William Rankin discussing the potential of the iPad for information and communication. I have had the same thoughts recently and believe it is important that we push this concept forward. Since the creation of the codex we have had the simple opportunity to place a bookmark to keep track of important areas in a volume we want to refer back to. Books allow us to write notes in the margins as was done even prior to the advent of the codex. This was pushed even further with the invention of Hypertext which was popularized in the 1990s with the World Wide Web. Most recently, Social Media has combined Hypertext with social websites that allow people to share information and ideas.
I believe these ideas need to be adopted in digital books, audio books, as well as audio and video podcasts with attention to educational podcasts in particular. Standards should be adopted for ebook and audio and video formats to allow for bookmarks that contain meta-data such as notes, links, audio or video attachments. These bookmarks might be included by the producer of the media file and may exist in multiple categories depending on the interest of the media owner. They also can be created by the owner of the media themselves. Furthermore, the media can interact with web based services that socially interact with the media files so you can peruse the bookmarks of others from around the world. Perhaps you want to apply a Wikipedia layer to the book you are reading so all words and concepts you are unfamiliar with can be references for clarification at Wikipedia or other websites dedicated to enhancing the understanding of the ideas being explored in your book. Alternative you may want to display ongoing discussions in a chat room with others reading the same page of your book, choosing the chat room discussion that matches your understanding level or opinion on the subject you are reading.
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