Web We Weave (aka WWW)

In a recent blog, I had written about the pain of URL’s as the way to surf the Web. Turns out the URL may be a necessary evil after all! Allen Pike explains why:
“I realize that URLs are ugly to look at, hard to remember, and a nightmare for security. Still, they are the entire point of the web.”
Why? Let John Gruber explain:
“The web has always been a nebulous concept, but at its center is the idea that everything can be linked.”
And so, Pike reminds us:
“The term “web” is no accident – it refers to this (linking) explicitly.”

Given that definition of the Web, imagine how you would link to an article without a URL: would a Google search always get you to the exact same article?

And as long as the answer to the above question is No, as Pike says:
“Unlike other modern technologies that have hidden as much complexity as possible, web browsers have continued to put this technical artifact top center, dots, slashes and all. The noble URL caused a revolution in sharing and publishing.”

Each app on your phone is dedicated for one activity (photo editing, Facebook, maps, mails etc). And so far, as Pike says:
“(Phone apps) have been fairly dismal in terms of linkability, creating silos of content that have no sensical URL.”
So are apps breaking the Web? It’s Facebook to the rescue! They announced AppLinks, a documented standard for app-to-app linking. Will the other apps come on board? Time will tell.

(In case you wondered, if AppLinks catches on, guess who will be feeding ads to the other apps? Facebook! But still, if Zuckerberg is saving the Web, let’s allow him to make a few billions along the way…)

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