user generated content

The book talks about how web sites and multimedia cd-roms are completely one-dimensional in that communication from these sources can only be displayed in certain order even if the user has free range. What is meant by this is that news outlets can display a certain piece of information that a user can read but to that extent only. Same with multimedia cd-roms such as Microsoft Encarta can display information to a user on basically any subject but can do no more than that. However I would have to disagree with this statement due to the fact that in today’s world information can be commented on from just about anything as well as be changed at any users discretion. It should be noted that at the time this book was written, digital media was at its infancy and commenting on news feeds was not yet available. However websites such as Wikipedia allow for users to add comments and change information on particular sites and allow users to either agree or disagree with this change. Take a recent example of the late death of Brittney Murphy, within only minutes of her death being released to the media outlets, her Wikipedia page had already been updated by a user about her death and also commented about the proposed cause of death. This right here shows that web sites are completly multi-dimesional in that information can be changed, commented on, and even debated by numerous rumors at the instant information is displayed. This just goes to show that the evolution of the web sites has come along way from web 1.0 to web 2.0.