Ted Nelson is a somewhat controversial figure in the computing world. For thirty-something years he has been having grand ideas but has never seen them through to completed projects. His biggest project, Xanadu, was to be a world-wide electronic publishing system that would have created a sort universal libary for the people.He is known for coining the term "hypertext." He is also seen as something of a radical figure, opposing authority and tradition. He has been called "one of the most influential contrarians in the history of the information age." (Edwards, 1997). He often repeats his four maxims by which he leads his life: "most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong." (Wolf, 1995)

He was the sole creater of xanado
Xanadu was concieved as a tool to preserve and increase humanity's literature and art. Xanadu would consist of a world-wide network that would allow information to be stored not as separate files but as connected literature. Documents would remain accessible indefinitely. Users could create virtual copies of any document. Instead of having copyrighted materials, the owners of the documents would be automatically paid via electronic means a micropayment for the virtual copying of their documents.

THE XANADU MODEL
The Xanadu model has always been very simple: make content available with certain permissions; then distribute and maintain documents simply as lists of these contents, to be filled in by the browser (in the same way that browsers now fill in GIFs). This list of contents is effectively a virtual file of contents to be sent for and how to put them together.


http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
Ted Nelson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson