Lynn Russo just did an email interview with me about a phrase I hadn’t thought much about. Thought you might want to read the entire thing:

First, can you tell me, what does the term nonlinear
mean to you when it comes to advertising and marketing
online?

During the tv-industrial complex, shows and ads were
linear, because producers of media assumed we would start at
the beginning and sit till the end.

Enter the remote and tivo and the web and suddenly, you can
interact with what you want, when you want.

In what ways is online media already nonlinear?

online media has always been non linear, which is why every
single person or organization that has tried to turn the web into a big TV
has failed.

What value does this bring to the advertiser?

Most advertisers see a threat. Smart advertisers see a
chance to deliver anticipated, personal and relevant ads to
the people who choose to get them.

How do customers react/respond to the nonlinear aspects
of online media compared with the way they respond to a more
linear campaign?

Almost all "campaigns" are linear, because that’s how
advertisers, producers, directors and story tellers think.

Are customers driving this nonlinear movement?

On the other hand, consumers of media don’t think that way.
We browse. We reject the storytelling arc and just take what
we want, and then move on.

Where do you see this going? How will online media and
promotion become increasingly more nonlinear?

What works: messages from many places, not one, directed to
many different types of people, not one, that tell a story
we want to hear, but do it in many different ways

Can you think of any good examples of non-linear use of
the Internet?

all the stuff that works on the net… from chat to blogs to
adwords to google… it’s all non-linear.

With squidoo, we’re trying to build something that adds
structure to that non-linear nature. Organized non-linearity.