"The multimedia revolution is not just about performing traditional tasks in new ways. It is also about creating new approaches to communication, commerce, education, and entertainment. Cell phones become text messengers, cameras, and video displays. E-commerce gives shoppers instant access to countless products and services complete with pictures, demos, reviews, and price comparisons. Classrooms lose their walls as digital media—graphics, animation, sound, and video—stream through electronic networks. New forms of entertainment, such as podcasts, video games, online poker tournaments, and interactive film, have transformed that industry as well. In these cases, and in many more, digital multimedia is changing the world by making it possible for users to interact with information in new ways."
-Introduction to Digital Multimedia, T.M. Savage and K.E. Vogel