Professor Wendy Hall University of Southampton http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wh Whatever happened to hypertext?

Professor Wendy Hall

University of Southampton

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wh

“ As we may think” Vannevar Bush Atlantic Monthly July 1945

Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart Everything is deeply intertwingled Augmenting human intellect

Hypertext Conference Series 1987 was a big year for hypertext. Apple launched HyperCard First ACM Hypertext Conference – HT’87, Chapel Hill, North Carolina ACM HT’89, Pittsburgh Key feature was interdisciplinary nature of the conferences – authors and poets as well as techies Systems around at the time included KMS, NoteCards, Guide, Intermedia, Microcosm, Hyper-G and the embyronic Web

Hypertext Conference Series

1987 was a big year for hypertext. Apple launched HyperCard

First ACM Hypertext Conference – HT’87, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

ACM HT’89, Pittsburgh

Key feature was interdisciplinary nature of the conferences – authors and poets as well as techies

Systems around at the time included KMS, NoteCards, Guide, Intermedia, Microcosm, Hyper-G and the embyronic Web

ECHT’90

Fountain et al “Microcosm: an open model for hypermedia with dynamic linking” Proceedings of ECHT’90

Microcosm Linkbases Link database Documents Note the direction of this arrow! Separable hyperstructure

Links in Microcosm source, destination, description source: object | concept | context Focus on associative linking Different linkbases for different users We generated links based on metadata description of documents in docuverse and “it all falls out”

ACM Hypertext’91

ACM Hypertext’91

The rise and fall of the Hypertext conference series ECHT’92, Italy ACM HT’93, Seattle – peak of attendance figures, big commercial exhibition, half the demo’s are Web ECHT’94 (merged with ECHT), Edinburgh – Tim is keynote speaker (NB: WWW1, May 1994, Geneva) ACM HT’96, Washington DC ACM HT’97 (merged with ECHT), Southampton – 150 attendees, cf. 2,000+ attendees at WWW6 in California Hypertext conferences in terminal decline (almost!)

ECHT’92, Italy

ACM HT’93, Seattle – peak of attendance figures, big commercial exhibition, half the demo’s are Web

ECHT’94 (merged with ECHT), Edinburgh – Tim is keynote speaker (NB: WWW1, May 1994, Geneva)

ACM HT’96, Washington DC

ACM HT’97 (merged with ECHT), Southampton – 150 attendees, cf. 2,000+ attendees at WWW6 in California

Hypertext conferences in terminal decline (almost!)

Web conference series begins WWW1 – May 1994, Geneva WWW2 – October 1994, Chicago WWW3 – April 1995, Darmstadt WWW4 – December 1995, Boston WWW5 – 1996, Paris WWW6 – 1997, Santa Clara, California. Paper accepted for conference that “reinvents” Microcosm generic links – index-based hyperlinks. Schedule clash with HT’97 in Southampton. Joint panel. Quote from Ted “Your future is my past”. WWW7 – 1998, Australia. Annual WWW conference rotates between US, Europe and ROW. I join IW3C2. Hypertext track established at WWW conferences

WWW1 – May 1994, Geneva

WWW2 – October 1994, Chicago

WWW3 – April 1995, Darmstadt

WWW4 – December 1995, Boston

WWW5 – 1996, Paris

WWW6 – 1997, Santa Clara, California. Paper accepted for conference that “reinvents” Microcosm generic links – index-based hyperlinks. Schedule clash with HT’97 in Southampton. Joint panel. Quote from Ted “Your future is my past”.

WWW7 – 1998, Australia. Annual WWW conference rotates between US, Europe and ROW. I join IW3C2.

Hypertext track established at WWW conferences

Lessons learnt: Big is beautiful: the network is everything (tbl) Scruffy works: let the links fail to make it scale (tbl) But we lost (for a time) conceptual and contextual linking Creating good hypertext in the Web is ironically very hard Missing links – search engines fill the gap

Ending the Tyranny of the Link “ We need to develop a new conception of hypermedia that includes non-network structures as well as virtual structures on an equal footing with network structures.” Halasz, HT’91 A query is an unresolved link

“ We need to develop a new conception of hypermedia that includes non-network structures as well as virtual structures on an equal footing with network structures.”

Halasz, HT’91

The Proxy DLS DLS Agent client Link server Internet The DLS Agent is an HTTP proxy that inserts links on-the-fly by querying the link service

XML XLink XPointer Open Hypermedia Systems community influence on the Web? What happened to contextual and conceptual linking?

Open Hypermedia Systems community influence on the Web?

What happened to contextual and conceptual linking?

COHSE Improving the quality, consistency and breadth of linking of Web documents using ontologies.

Improving the quality, consistency and breadth of linking of Web documents using ontologies.

Artificial Intelligence

The Semantic Web Semantic Web LayerCake (Berners-Lee, 99;Swartz-Hendler, 2001)

The Semantic Web: A Web of Data

Person URI: http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1650 Role URI: http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/role/1650 Person RDF: http://rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1650 Role RDF: http://rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk/role/1650 Internal Person RDF: http://intra.rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1650 Internal Role RDF: http://intra.rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk/role/1650 More information Everything is deeply intertwingled!

An Introduction

Technical Architecture - semantic store scalable to 60Bn triples WWW Semi-structured data Front End Unstructured data Structured data JXT (f) JXT merge (e) RDS (d) NPS (c) Ranked Searchable Segment (b) URLs (a) Natural Language Engineering Harvested Pages NUTCH

Web 2.0 Wiki’s Blogs Web services Folksonomies Flickr YouTube MySpace Second Life? Blogosphere

Wiki’s

Blogs

Web services

Folksonomies

Flickr

YouTube

MySpace

Second Life?

Tomorrow the Semantic Web ( Web 3.0) What will the social and policy implications be? How do we start to answer these questions?

What will the social and policy implications be?

How do we start to answer these questions?

The Web Science Research Initiative Creating a Science of the Web November 2006 Directors: Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt, Southampton Tim Berners-Lee, Daniel Weitzner, MIT

What is Web Science? The Web has been transformational Largest human information construct in history How are we to Understand what it is Engineer its future Ensure its social benefit This requires a new interdisciplinary field This field we call Web Science, or the Science of Decentralized Information Systems

The Web has been transformational

Largest human information construct in history

How are we to

Understand what it is

Engineer its future

Ensure its social benefit

This requires a new interdisciplinary field

This field we call Web Science, or the Science of Decentralized Information Systems

Web Science Involves New Science New Engineering New Social Understanding New Capacity

New Science

New Engineering

New Social Understanding

New Capacity

Research Agenda WSRI will generate a research agenda for understanding the scientific, technical and social challenge underlying the growth of the Web Or particular interest is the volume of information on the Web that increasingly documents aspects of human activity and knowledge WSRI research projects will weight questions such as: How do we access information and assess its reliability? By what means may we assure its use complies with social and legal rules? How will we preserve the Web over time?

WSRI will generate a research agenda for understanding the scientific, technical and social challenge underlying the growth of the Web

Or particular interest is the volume of information on the Web that increasingly documents aspects of human activity and knowledge

WSRI research projects will weight questions such as:

How do we access information and assess its reliability?

By what means may we assure its use complies with social and legal rules?

How will we preserve the Web over time?

Why this is important? We cannot take for granted the freedom to exchange information that is at the heart of the Web It has become our cultural legacy, our social heritage – we live in a web-dependent society in a web-dependent world Protecting and preserving this freedom is a major challenge as big as any other global cause If we don’t do this, who will? This is as grand challenge and maybe an inconvenient truth!

We cannot take for granted the freedom to exchange information that is at the heart of the Web

It has become our cultural legacy, our social heritage – we live in a web-dependent society in a web-dependent world

Protecting and preserving this freedom is a major challenge as big as any other global cause

If we don’t do this, who will?

This is as grand challenge and maybe an inconvenient truth!

www.webscience.org HT’07 Manchester – re-launch on series WWW conference still going strong but has never attracted the hypertext crowd The Semantic Web represents the re-birth of hypertext but the hypertext crowd won’t find much to interest them at ISWC and ESWC The Web 2.0 conferences are too commercial? Will we have to create a Web Science conference series?

HT’07 Manchester – re-launch on series

WWW conference still going strong but has never attracted the hypertext crowd

The Semantic Web represents the re-birth of hypertext but the hypertext crowd won’t find much to interest them at ISWC and ESWC

The Web 2.0 conferences are too commercial?

Will we have to create a Web Science conference series?