Have you noticed that the word document doesn't mean much these days? It covers everything from a text-only wordprocessing file to a spreadsheet to a Java-soaked interactive Web page.
It didn't used to be like this. A document was a piece of paper - such as a will or passport - with an official role in our legal system. But when the makers of wordprocessors looked for something to call their special kind of files, they imported document. As multimedia entered what used to be text-only files, the word stretched to the point of meaninglessness. Just try to make sense of the file types Windows 95 puts into the Document menu entry.
The fact that we can't even say what a document is anymore indicates the profundity of the change we are undergoing in how we interact with information and, ultimately, our world.
- David Weinberger (self@evident.com) is VP of strategic marketing at Open Text.
