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Mobile 'Deep Links' and the Fate of the Web

Posted by Soulskill on 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."

7 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. That may have been the original goal... by xevioso · · Score: 2

    ...but things change, and the primary purposes of links now, on almost all platforms, is for one primary reason: to generate income.

    You click a link, it goes to a page with an ad, which, when served and clicked on, will generate income, allowing the owners to pay for the website. While some websites are purely informational, most websites generate information in order to make money, and most of that money is made by people clicking links.

    1. Re:That may have been the original goal... by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 2

      Beside, people are suing for deep linking because it subverts their add revenue
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
  2. The whole web has been a squandered opportunity by UnknownSoldier · · 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? :-/

    1. Re:The whole web has been a squandered opportunity by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
  3. I wish I could find it again by holophrastic · · Score: 2

    It's been at least 20 years since I saw the best web page ever. Very simple: the lyrics to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", with each term linked to yet another external site discussing its history.

  4. Answer: Web apps by Art3x · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Symmetrical Web by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    When I am on a desktop machine, SeaMonkey is my browser of choice, because I still believe in the old ideal of a symmetrical web.

    Every machine on the web should be client/server, or at least connected to and capable of creating web content based on an open standard. A 'browser' should have an 'edit' button on the left most window, and 'edit' should open the wysiwyg html editor (Seamonkey is still like that! Though you're usually editing a new local copy of the content).

    Instead we mostly get herded to leave any content we generate in forms on curated proprietary servers. The web has been dumbed down for most people to be little more than somewhat more interactive television.