aka Ken Smith: It's actually a web

Academics, among others, often forget to offer easy, powerful links to “read more here” pieces, which is a huge virtue of the web.#

Some people forget about linking because they think the web is mainly a forum for public speech. “I type and my words go out.” “I persuade. I mock. I drown out other voices.” “I sell my product. I sell myself.”#

There are people who see their commercial or political purposes being served when that happens to the web.#

There are users who have probably never noticed the web behaving any other way.#

And it’s true, we often ignore the webyness of the web. The built-out and still building web of linked meaning. People assembling themselves in public, asserting moment by moment, as best they can, meaningful links between bits of speech, stories, lives, matters of beauty and of urgency.#

And behind the unfolding web of linked meaning, we sometimes glimpse a shadowy social web trying, often failing, to materialize concretely and for a time usefully, creatively endure in our embodied human world.#

The difficulty of that last part is a weakness of our tools and culture. Maybe it’s also a weakness of our nature a human beings, I don’t know.#

But people who were blogging in the early 2000s remember that folks with a shared topic were sometimes able to build and, even if fitfully, sustain a useful conversation for a good long time. How often to something concrete happen in the world as a result? I don't know.#