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Mobile 'Deep Links' and the Fate of the Web
An anonymous reader writes: Mobile developers call the links they're forging between apps "deep links," but so far the whole idea seems to be more about marketing than deepening understanding. This essay over at Backchannel argues that we still haven't delivered on the original promise of links online — the idea of enabling people to build and share "cathedrals of context." Quoting: "The people who invented the link saw it as a tool for relating ideas in illuminating ways—for making conceptual leaps and connecting disparate thoughts. If these visionaries had achieved their aim, the kind of tech-cultural amnesia represented by the recycling of the term 'deep links' shouldn't have been possible, two decades into the Web era. The links with true depth that they envisioned would have made sure of that."
For those who don't care to read the long article, the problem is that phone apps can't link into each other very easily, the way websites can. The answer to this problem and so many others is just to make your phone app a web app, instead of a native one.
What is the web you speak of? Is that the Facebook or the Twitter? I'm so confused.
A bit of sarcasm there but it does feel to me as though we've taken a step backwards. We've gone from the walled garden of services like AOL and Compuserve to the walled garden of Facebook and Twitter. Like AOL, there's nothing forcing people to use the Internet in this manner, except for sheer size and inertia. There are now countless examples of businesses, recreational groups, fundraisers, and so forth whose sole online presence consists of their Facebook and/or Twitter pages. If they bother to maintain a webpage it's hopelessly out of date. Need updates about our activity? Like us on Facebook! Have a question? Post it on our wall! Good luck trying to e-mail us.
Besides the sheer annoyance (not all of us wish to be sucked in Facebook's ecosystem) factor there are consequences here for free speech. Mediums like Usenet or IRC were resistant to attempts at censorship, they embodied the internet as most of us knew it. The contrast with large corporations like Facebook or Google is depressing; they're compelled to engage in censorship for legal (try Googling Tienanmen Square in the PRC) reasons, to say nothing of their tendency to cave to public pressure and censor unpopular viewpoints, or even to behave like our nanny (Facebook's policy towards non-sexual topless photos of females)
At the rate we're going I'd be surprised if anyone remembers the "internet" in another ten years.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.