Mobile 'Deep Links' and the Fate of the Web

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 7, 2015 @11:10AM from the URLs-with-short-half-lives dept.

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."

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The whole web has been a squandered opportunity by UnknownSoldier · 2015-04-07 11:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

"Deep links" are only the tip of the iceberg.
As Alan Kay pointed out almost 20 years ago (!) when the web get reinvented twice over it STILL kept missing its true potential.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Right now the web has been relegated to content consumption, posting stupid obvious questions, posting controversial material to get eyeballs (clickbait), trying to get as many clicks as possible by splitting articles up into N pages, or even bullshit like only liking to articles on the same site. /glares at Phoronix
The web has become a clusterfuck of bad design and worse implementations.
When you have standards misspelling referrer in the HTTP header standard it is depressing that everything about the web is literally half-assed.
What's new? :-/