World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was first formally proposed twenty years ago yesterday. While there's no doubt that much has been accomplished since that time, nagging problems remain. The Web was never designed to be a multimedia content delivery system. Sound and video were simply links to files which the browser handed to external applications. Most of the Web today has to be processed by a programming language before it can be viewed. In some ways the present World Wide Web has become the problem that it was originally intended to solve, namely that information should be easily accessible with a simple interface.

Links? We Don't Need No Stinking Links!

In the latest example of people who just don't get how the World Wide Web works (WWW-w? ^_^), Japan's Nikkei newspaper now requires that you obtain their approval for any inbound links to their articles. So why do they even bother to publish anything on the WWW?

I wonder how long before they notice the traffic to their site has plummeted. I googled for "japan nikkei newspaper" and didn't get a single result going directly to the newspaper's web site. Makes sense, otherwise Google would have to get permission for any links before it could show them to me.

I'd provide a link to Nikkei newspaper, but... ^_^