The term hypermedia was used for the first time in the book No More Teacher’s Dirty Looks by Ted Nelson in the year 1965. We call hypermedia to the procedures to design contents including texts, videos, audios, maps… that are able to interact with the user. That is the main and most important characteristic of the hypermedia.
Aspen Movie Map
The first hypermedia work that we have a record of is the Aspen Movie Map, a tool developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by a team working with Andrew Lippman in 1978 and that allowed users to take a virtual tour through the city of Aspen, Colorado. But the most modern hypermedia have been delivered, mainly, via electronic pages, using a wide range of systems including Media players, web browsers and, of course, stand-alone applications. However, when we think of hypermedia works we are not exclusively referring to computer applications, a Dvd, for instance, is a good example of hypermedia.
Hypermedia is the last step in human communication, letting us share and gather information in such different ways. Actually, hypermedia works have meant a total revolution in this field. New phenomena like electronic literature or listening to a lecture that is taking place miles away, for example, are progresively gainning importance thanks to this new technology. Hypermedia enables us to build and enjoy multisensory contents, widening the possibilities of information transmission.
Summing up, hypermedia consists of texts, videos, audios, films, maps… that are able to interact with the user, and everything just one hyperlink away!
References:
- Hypermedia. (2008, December 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:08, December 26, 2008, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypermedia&oldid=259629326 - Jose Manuel Pérez Tornero. (1999, November 30).De la escritura a la hipermedia. In Comunidad de formadores. Retrieved 18:04, 2008, December 26, from
http://e-formadores.redescolar.ilce.edu.mx/recursos/pdfs_tornero/escritura_hipermedia.pdf - Jay David Bolter. (1991). Electronic Signs. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Lawrence Erlbaum. (Reseña de George P. Landow 1992 en The Journal of Computing in Higher Education 3). Retrieved 18:04, December 26, 2008, from
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=79980731
JBA 
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