Distributed hypermedia

There are a rich set of unresolved technical challenges for delivering multimedia information on computer architectures, but, from an information delivery perspective, there is a compelling argument that the greatest challenge is not to have existing television or stereo capability on a computer but rather to have the computer to manage video and audio data. This is a subtle shift in orientation that significantly enhances the value of hypermedia technology as a delivery mechanism and it has contributed to the tremendous growth of hypermedia systems. They have come almost full circle from conceptual frameworks for global information, to narrowly focused proprietary application engines, to widely available general purpose tools. In fact, several systems come very close to what early researchers envisioned as grand schemes for universal authoring, exchange and discovery of information. This paper outlines key concepts of a distributed hypermedia based system and identifies open issues for deploying and utilizing these systems.