Traction Software, Inc. | Blog936: Reinventing the Web

Traction Software President Greg Lloyd posted a perspective on the NYT Ted Nelson article; an excerpt:

So when people ask what will deliver two-way links, fine grain comments and tagging, traceable transclusion and the promise of the Semantic Web, I suggest an approach which layers these hypertext capabilities over the basic Web in way that exposes readable content which is absolutely compatible with the basic Web for all readers and existing engines.

Offer seamless collaborative editing, traceability, semantic search and other capabilities by extending the hypertext editing engines to support new layered protocols and transparently downsample richer models to deliver basic Web content to clients who use basic Web protocols. Offer extended formats and services to client or other servers with extended capabilities.

I'm sure that won't satisfy Ted, but before a sea change in the basic structure of the Web - which is what Nelson and other's global visions require - I believe you'll have to be satisfied with stable islands in the Web's storm tossed sea and protocols that support robust connections among islands.

I believe it's even possible to implement Ted's micropayment transclusion model as a layered protocol. People's DRM aversion, rights contracting and enforcement seem to be bigger issues than the technical barriers.

I also believe that Enterprise 2.0 secure collaboration and social networking provide the motivation to make this new way to think of reinvention of the Web a reality.

imho Traction is a market leader in beyond-the-basics hypertext, and Greg Lloyd has been working on hypertext systems for decades; read his full post for more details and historical context-setting

Traction Software, Inc. | Blog936: Reinventing the Web