Creating hypermedia documents by doing: an alternative to authoring

Describes how we provided a way for transient users of a "virtual trade exhibition" on the Internet to create hypertext documents by acting rather than writing. "TaTTOO'95 On-line" was a set of Internet-based online events, implemented using two key technologies: the World-Wide Web (WWW) and MOO. MOO (MUD, Object-Oriented) is a multi-user, text-based virtual world, based on MUD (Multi-User Dungeons or Multi-User Dimension). Users interact with each other by typing text commands in real time and reading the responses of other users from the screen. MOO is more than a simple "chat" system for a number of reasons. Firstly, users are situated in a virtual space, whereas simple chat systems disembody their users in the same way that the telephone does. Secondly, this virtual space may be constructed and customised by the users who inhabit it-the world is built by creating software objects for locations, people, books and so on. In this way, no two MOOs are alike, each developing its own identity and structure according to the needs and wishes of its inhabitants. Since MOO is text-based, we used the WWW to present the online events with additional information such as graphics. The two interfaces, MOO and WWW, were intended to coexist and to provide different ways to experience the events.