The discussion about net.literature and digital literature as well as digital arts and net.art is still very open concerning categories, which could be useful to classify the diverse phenomena appearing in these fields. Mostly, no difference is made between net-based art and literature and offline digital art and literature. So one of the decisive questions seems to be how the differentiation between computer-based art and literature on the one hand, and net.art and net.literature on the other can be made. This leads us to basic categorization processes, and the following abstract will try to clarify the conditions under which such definitions can be made. 

We cannot undertake any defining work without having a look at the medium we deal with. The "ontology of the medium" is "in the case of the computer" defined by two main characteristics: the several internal symbolic levels (starting from the most basic of 0 and 1, symbolizing the electric flow, then ascending gradually to the several programming languages and the surface the user works with), and the procedural structure provided by programming. Concerning the internet another level is to be considered - the source code which lies behind the glossy surface of pictures, animation and text. Besides this additional symbolic level the internet is characterized by two forms of communication: the communication between the networked computers and the communication of people through the networked machines. 

Now it seems to be not that difficult to draw the line between networked art and literature on the one hand, and offline digital art and literature on the other. Under the above mentioned premises every art work that works on local computers is per se an offline project. Such projects mostly concentrate on semiotic experiments and thus challenge our standardized perception. They (partly) deal with the man-machine-relation, but do not refer to any networked processes. Networked art and literature on the contrary needs the global networking to work properly. There are a lot of different tendencies which can be observed, they can roughly be categorized according to their different communicational character, so that we can distinguish three different forms: Net.art and -literature that deals 

- with the man-machine relationship and the specific nature of protocols and programming languages (e.g. the "Web Stalker")
- with the networked communication of users through collaborative writing (e.g. the "Assoziations-Blaster") 
- with the networked communication of users as ephemeral interaction (e.g. virtual worlds as "Conversation with Angels"). 

All of these networked projects cross borders installed by the "traditional" art sphere - they either reflect our standardized use of semiotic systems and the underlying networked computer-processes by re-interpreting them in unusual ways, or they transgress the border between art and life, and between producer and recipient, in making networked communication the core of their structure. Thus they become inherently procedural and partly ephemeral as they focus not on the results, but on the (computational and/or communicative) processes, and by this they reflect the specific structure of their medium. This reflection is extremely important for the realization of the implication computer and internet have on the epistemological and social development of society. We need net.art and net.literature to find new forms of meaning and social interaction that correspond to the specific structure of the new media. 

* "Cross the border, close the gap!" is the title of Leslie A. Fiedler's famous "manifesto" of postmodern literature, that appeared in Playboy Dec. 1969 pp. 151, 230, 252-254, 256-258.