<
https://theconversation.com/as-ai-and-megaplatforms-take-over-the-hyperlinks-that-built-the-web-may-face-extinction-239933>
"The original idea for the world wide web emerged in a flurry of scientific
thought around the end of World War II. It began with a hypothetical machine
called the “memex”, proposed by US Office of Scientific Research and
Development head Vannevar Bush in an article entitled
As We May Think,
published in the
Atlantic Monthly in 1945.
The memex would help us access all knowledge, instantaneously and from our
desks. It had a searchable index, and documents were linked together by the
“trails” made by users when they associated one document with another. Bush
imagined the memex using microfiche and photography, but conceptually it was
almost the modern internet.
The true value in this early idea was the links: if you wanted to explore more,
there was an easy, built-in way to do that. Anyone who has spent hours
following random links on Wikipedia and learning about things they never knew
interested them will recognise this value. (There is of course a Wikipedia page
about this phenomenon.)
Links have made the web what it is. But as social media platforms, generative
AI tools and even search engines are trying harder to keep users on their site
or app, the humble link is starting to look like an endangered species."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
