concatenations.com is a site I created in 1998 to “explore inter-active media.” I was enrolled in an advanced course in Post Modernism at the University of Toronto. I needed to write a 50 page paper on ‘Simultaneity in Time and Space.’ The topic was inspired by the works of Marshall McLuhan. I set up a web cam so that I could gain timely first hand knowledge of the topic.

Within weeks the site became alarmingly popular. It regularly received four thousand page views a day. At the height of its popularity its pageviews exceeded eight thousand per day. Back then that was extraordinary: concatenations.com ranked higher than then the Louvre for pageviews in Googlestats.

It may be hard to believe but I found this response disconcerting, it added many unwanted dimensions to my quest for understanding. Not the least of the complications was the perplexing question of why the page was so popular and what use could be made of the exposure it got.

I did not write the paper. Instead I tried to understand the reactions of viewers, my own experience and the some of the technology. I gave consideration to commercial possibilities and marketing, philanthropic pursuits, and the potential for studying internet specific ethics and psychology. That’s really all it ever was.

I learned a lot: those years were sometimes fascinating, sometimes frustrating but never dull.

The whole story will be told in another area of the site. This blog is for day to day observations to about today’s media that are undoubtedly informed by that experience.

I am not expecting this site to have mass appeal. I am hoping for considered responses, reactions, observations and opinions.

Melanie Blakeman