Hyperlinks are a powerful tool for journalists and their readers. Diving deep into the context of an article is just a click away. But hyperlinks are a double-edged sword; for all of the internet’s boundlessness, what’s found on the Web can also be modified, moved, or entirely vanished. The fragility of the Web poses an […]
The Subversive Hyperlink
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.
Freeing the Web from the Browser | reinterpretcast.com
The Web is, without a doubt, the most powerful research tool currently available to man. No longer must researchers comb through endless indices and catalogues to find what they are looking for. Instead, hyperlinks allow users to associatively explore rich interconnected structures of information with ease. In just a few clicks, it is possible to navigate through a vast global space of information comprising documents on virtually any subject.
Disaster, doubt, and the origins of hypertext
Hypertext and the World Wide Web are built on a complex network of ideas that originate in the military and ecological disasters of the short 20 th Century, 1914--1989, and in a world-spanning intellectual effort to prevent their recurrence. Though that effort now appears to have failed, and though the tragic story of the 20 th Century has not, it seems, concluded, we may learn profit by examining the concepts and ideals on which hypertext was built.
Disaster, doubt, and the origins of hypertext
Hypertext and the World Wide Web are built on a complex network of ideas that originate in the military and ecological disasters of the short 20 th Century, 1914--1989, and in a world-spanning intellectual effort to prevent their recurrence. Though that effort now appears to have failed, and though the tragic story of the 20 th Century has not, it seems, concluded, we may learn profit by examining the concepts and ideals on which hypertext was built.
On Link Rot
The web suffers from link rot: hyperlinks that were valid upon creation will often point into nothingness after some time has passed. Within the framework of the web, the typical solution is to link to a snapshot of the original page, hosted on archive.org.
On Link Rot
The web suffers from link rot: hyperlinks that were valid upon creation will often point into nothingness after some time has passed. Within the framework of the web, the typical solution is to link to a snapshot of the original page, hosted on archive.org.
The reckless, infinite scope of web browsers
This blog post was published on March 18, 2020. It might be out of date, have broken images or links, or simply contain bad ideas and opinions that didn't stand the test of time. Please read generously!
Fixing the UX of hyperlinks
Fixing the UX of hyperlinks User Interfaces should be predictable. Not like suspense thrillers where you don’t know what’s coming next. Users should be aware of the consequence of the actions …
Research, Attention, and Manipulation
Questionable articles can quietly move into Wikipedia and news outlets without notice.
No Longer No Sense of an Ending
This is my first feature piece on Contents Magazine, about harnessing the properties of hypertext and the Web for superior reader experiences and business results.
It's time to rebuild the web
The web was never supposed to be a few walled gardens of concentrated content owned by a few major publishers; it was supposed to be a cacophony of different sites and voices.
The Group That Rules the Web
Billions of humans will use the Web over the next decade, yet very few of those people are in a position to define what is “the Web” and what isn’t.
The Mediated Web
<p>Large Language Models have the potential to hugely shift what it means to interact with a web browser.</p> <p>Here’s a prediction: the web will soon be mediated by agents, not just rendered by web browsers. Every user will have their own AI interpreting information for them, and executing tasks on their behalf.</p> <p>What does this mean now, and what does it mean for the future of the web? Let’s delve into what a mediated web might look like, and how it could impact the internet ecosystem.</p>
How is science clicked on Twitter? Click metrics for Bitly short links to scientific publications
Abstract To provide some context for the potential engagement behavior of Twitter users around science, this article investigates how Bitly short links to scientific publications embedded in scholarly Twitter mentions are clicked on Twitter. Based on the click metrics of over 1.1 million Bitly short links referring to Web of Science (WoS) publications, our results show that around 49.5% of them were not clicked by Twitter users. For those Bitly short links with clicks from Twitter, the majority of their Twitter clicks accumulated within a short period of time after they were first tweeted. Bitly short links to the publications in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities tend to attract more clicks from Twitter over other subject fields. This article also assesses the extent to which Twitter clicks are correlated with some other impact indicators. Twitter clicks are weakly correlated with scholarly impact indicators (WoS citations and Mendeley readers), but moderately correlated to other Twitter engagement indicators (total retweets and total likes). In light of these results, we highlight the importance of paying more attention to the click metrics of URLs in scholarly Twitter mentions, to improve our understanding about the more effective dissemination and reception of science information on Twitter.
How the Blog Broke the Web
I first got online in 1993, back when the Web had a capital letter — three, in fact — and long before irony stretched its legs and unbuttoned its flan
The Missing Building Blocks of the Web
At a time when millions are losing trust in the the web’s biggest sites, it’s worth revisiting the idea that the web was supposed to be…
