What's a zine?

RELease 1.0, June 23, 1995 by Jerry Michalski

Not really Rush

Rush isn't the only one who might talk about Rush online. Several people have put Unofficial Rush Pages on the Web. WTAW, a Bryan, TX-based talk-radio station that broadcasts Rush's show, has one that includes a FAQ (frequently asked questions) file, Rush's "35 undeniable truths" and assorted other statements, a way to e-mail Rush on CompuServe, digitized sound clips from his shows, a fact-checking zinger by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), pointers to the alt.fan.rush-limbaugh newsgroup and more. All without Rush's help. Someone in Seattle runs another Unofficial Rush Page; a Web text search will turn up many other Rush-related pages. There's also at least one anti-Rush page (for the pointers, see Resources, page 23).

RELATED ARTICLE: A new form of authoring; a new kind of content

There's a big difference between a monolithic piece of content (say a book or newsletter) and a web of related materials, richly woven into the surrounding context and ongoing conversations. Writing the traditional way produces linear content that stands by itself. The rhetoric of hypermedia is different in a way that nobody's quite figured out yet. It certainly creates a different user experience.

Creating a standalone written work is like growing a potted plant. You water it. It flourishes, branches out, develops shape and becomes mature. When it's done, though, it's pretty easy to take away. Creating the heavily linked work is more like growing one of those massive fungal organisms that live in the tundra. In fact, it's more like tending to the entire ecosystem that surrounds the fungus, with lots of symbiotic organisms. Note that an ecosystem is hard to move, especially when it involves interactions between people. The more a work is woven into its context (within limits, of course), the harder it is to uproot and move elsewhere, for better or worse.

(1)Calling them sites is too Web-centric and tool impersonal; places or spaces doesn't convey much; publications evokes a stronger sense of the editorial process, advertising and other baggage. "Zine" conveys the most important aspect, the preeminence of a person's voice or approach.

(2)For example, an enterprising programmer could hack home entertainment centers. If you peek in the drawer of the Sony Magic Link's desktop, you'll find a software infrared remote-control unit. The remote allows the Magic Link to drive any recent Sony infrared-equipped gear, including TVs, VCRs, stereos, CDs and boom boxes. Since the Magic Link is a great e-mail machine, a zine could send it programming via e-mail. So every week, zine hosts could easily send their viewing selections to their subscribers.

(3)Winer's mailing list server has a nice feature that distinguishes it from others. It sends messages to ten people at a time, chosen at random. Each message has in its header nine other people on the big list. This is more intimate than an ordinary mailing list, where you usually see only the sender's name, and less messy than the carbon-copy nightmare that happens when you don't use a mailing list.