They added things everybody really wanted like link tags, and format tags, and scripting, it turned out, and cookies, and a lot of stuff which is still with us, things which have gone on to become standards, things which were added without a lot of thought as to their consequences.

Especially Competition + Language

Why Firefox is (still) with Google.

An example of social/technical writing.

The motherlode.

1 Oct 1998

see #25

The vision of a re-configured reading environment has been realized, but not in the way the proponents of electronic book or story space imagined. Enthusiasm for experimental engagement with alternative structures and invention of new forms of artistic or information expression has levelled off while hypermedia have become familiar, integrated in a daily way with reading in electronic space. A disjunct exists between the windows-based experience of online reading and the e-book industry's attempt at designing a visual format that suggests an extension of the traditional book. An even greater disjunct exists between those designs and the conceptualization of formats suitable to the functions that actually are uniquely enabled in electronic space. These include some new ways to assemble objects and promote communications in virtual space. \\

Today, just as it was back then, "Who is the author?" is the root question. If you don't find one, turn your skepticism meter to the top of the dial.