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What is new media? There is no single answer to be given. Even old media were once new, to borrow Carolyn Marvin's observation, and new media are constantly changing and evolving. In truth, the question itself is a shorthand way of asking more than one thing (one might call it “multi-asking”). Those who pose it usually want to know the history of new media, its present outlines, and perhaps most importantly, what it will be like in the future. The Encyclopedia of New Media is the first attempt to comprehensively map the current terrain. Taken together, the encyclopedia's entries constitute an attempt to map the constellation of new media. Particular technologies and artifacts are important; compact discs, the World Wide Web, streaming media, for instance, are of enormous importance to the way new media have developed and have had enormous impacts. At least as important as the “things” of Taken ...