I'm collecting examples of nature metaphors used to describe cyberspace and the internet and it's turning out to be a giant task so I would really appreciate some help.
To give you an idea of the kind of material I'm collecting, here are some watery metaphors dating back to Al Gore's remarks to the National Press Club, Dec 21st 1993, when he famously introduced the concept of an 'information superhighway'. Read the whole speech and you'll see that there are quite a few watery images in there too. He said 'It's a "phase change" -- like moving from ice to water; Ice is simple and water is simple, but in the middle of the change it's mush -- part monopoly, part franchise, part open competition. We want to manage that transition.'[1] And we're still using that same metaphor today: 'Think of the web, of the Internet itself, as water. Proprietary platforms based on the web are ice cubes. They can, for a time, suspend themselves above the web at large. But over time, they only ever melt into the water. And maybe they make it better when they do.' [2]
Tim O'Reilly uses quite a few nature metaphors in his writing, including watery ones like : 'The "blogosphere" can be thought of as a new, peer-to-peer equivalent to Usenet and bulletin-boards, the conversational watering holes of the early internet.' [3] and of late, many people have been swimming in the Twitter stream so I tweeted the question 'If Twitter were a landscape, what kind of landscape would it be?' J.P. Rangaswami replied: 'a collection of zillions of tiny rivers connected yet apart' [4] and David Terrar imagined a: 'twisty canyon with a fast flowing river ' [5] Those are just a few examples from a large number of images used to conceptualise the cyberspace experience and there are many more to be collected.
You can help with the research by contributing examples of nature metaphors, along with the context and source so that they can be referenced wherever possible. If you only have a sense of a usage but can't provide a source, please add it anyway since I may be able to supply the missing information. Please include your own personal imagery too. The list isn't public at the moment but I do plan to publish it in a year or so, when your contribution will be acknowledged if used.
Which nature metaphors have you come across? Please use this form to add your contribution.
I look forward to reading your thoughts,and thanks in advance for your help.
[1] Gore, A., 1993. Gore's remarks on the NII, 12-21-93. Available at: http://www.ibiblio.org/nii/goremarks.html [Accessed August 14, 2008]
[2] Dash, A., Blackbird, Rainman, Facebook and the Watery Web. Available at: http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/10/rainman-blackbird-facebook-and-the-new-tables.html [Accessed August 4, 2008].
[3] O'Reilly, T., 2005. What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business
Models for the Next Generation of Software. O'Reilly. Available at: http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228 [Accessed December 31, 2007].
[4] Rangaswami, J.P. 2008. If Twitter were a landscape, what kind of landscape would it be? The Wild Surmise. Available at: http://travelsinvirtuality.typepad.com/natureandcyberspace/2008/04/if-twitter-were.html [Accessed April 20, 2008].
[5] Terrar, D. J. 2008. If Twitter were a landscape, what kind of landscape would it be? The Wild Surmise. Available at: http://travelsinvirtuality.typepad.com/natureandcyberspace/2008/04/if-twitter-were.html [Accessed April 20, 2008].
