William, reasonably, wonders why the readings are ‘old’. Quick answers. They are not about the history of the internet, but hypertext. Because hypertext has (and still has) some of the smartest things to say and think about network structure. These ideas can help understand the entire web, right down to how to think about complex linked emergent structure in interactive video. The one thing hypertext is not great for in digital media is games, but we’re not looking at games (there’s a games degree for that). But read recent work on, say, online documentary, and apart from sounding like hypertext from 1990, it would be vastly improved by actually knowing about hypertext from 1990. So hypertext is a deep strucure, so learning about that helps us to understand everything else. He is also working on a hypertext, well done. Once upon a time we did a lot more hypertext, and used specific hypertext software because it is very very hard to get its importance without having to deal with it in the nitty gritty. Bit like trying to explain writing to someone who doesn’t have it. It would be very hard to just describe what it is, and its value, to someone who thought things were just fine as they were thank you.