The prediction, in brief:

Interactivity is not about obscuring the game with layers of statistics or talking pictures of grandpa. Rather, it’s about pulling the audience out of the armchair and pushing them into the baseball park. It’s about flying around the stadium and becoming a player in the game. These more subtle forms of interaction-based on simulation and spatial metaphor – hold much greater promise … It is this vision of interactivity that will sell new media technology in the long run.

Predictor: Whitby, Max

Prediction, in context:

In a 1993 article for Wired magazine, Max Whitby, founding director of the London-based Multimedia Corporation, an associated company of the British Broadcasting Corporation, reports on his lack of confidence in the potential success of proposed “interactive” technologies. Whitby writes:”Will people really want to interact in this way? After all, once the novelty wears off, will baseball fans really wish to summon up ponderous graphic data about selected players, or would they rather have a skilled and knowledgeable commentator do it for them? If grandpa phones during the match, will the family enthusiastically stop watching to replay some choice moment of the game, or will they tell him to get the hell off the line and call back when the game’s over? It seems to me we are rushing to implement interactive CDs, cable shows and personal electronics in the crudest ways without pausing to consider whether an improved medium will result. Storytelling and narrative lie at the heart of all successful communication. Crude, explicit, button-pushing interaction breaks the spell of engagement and makes it hard to present complex information that unfolds in careful sequence. In my view, this broken vision misses the real point about interactive media. Interactivity is not about obscuring the game with layers of statistics or talking pictures of grandpa. Rather, it’s about pulling the audience out of the armchair and pushing them into the baseball park. It’s about flying around the stadium and becoming a player in the game. These more subtle forms of interaction-based on simulation and spatial metaphor – hold much greater promise. They offer the audience a way to become literally involved in the story while preserving the integrity of the narrative. It is this vision of interactivity that will sell new media technology in the long run.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1993

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: Is Interactive Dead?

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/interactive.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney