How Books Will Become Machines / quote 3 of 21
The rise and fall of the CD-ROM
The CD-rom rise and fall should make us reflect on the power and the limit of closed systems. Like book application, CD-rom had all the potential to continue the way of the Book. They were celebrated as its future. As closed environments they offered great creative freedom, but they failed to build bridges with the rest of the digital environment. When the web emerged as open-ended information system, CD-roms progressively appeared as an obsolete technology.