People running Internet systems had to let their computer be used for forwarding other people’s packets, and connecting new applications they had no control over. People making web sites sometimes tried to legally prevent others from linking into the site, as they wanted complete control of the user experience, and they would not link out as they did not want people to escape. Until after a few months they realized how the web works. And the re-use kicked in. And the payoff started blowing people’s minds.

Letting your data connect to other people’s data is a bit about letting go in that sense. It is still not about giving to people data which they don’t have a right to. It is about letting it be connected to data from peer sites. It is about letting it be joined to data from other applications.

It is about getting excited about connections, rather than nervous.

— Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Media companies have long perceived their online versions as true reflections of their newspapers. Links became casualties of that belief, thereby denying readers the pleasure of links—as acknowledgements, attributions, references, and as trusted sources.

So this latest news about mainstream media now beginning to understand the power of links can only be good.

Yet, outside of technology and media focused companies, if you have noticed, a majority of establishments are still in dark ages—when it comes to linking. They fear the links. They are still trying to better understand the “new media,” as I often hear. A link is somehow ill-conceived as an entity requiring legal cleansing—a hassle they would much avoid.

I guess they’ll never know until they try. Because this unique ecosystem that we know as the internet is, well, unique; and way too cool to be in shadows and dust of ancient and dated publishing philosophies. It is also time to get over the idea of links as some kind of currency, especially in terms of acknowledging, and extending ideas. Sir Isaac Newton said it best when he said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

My educated guess on Titanic’s failure until now had been hinging on uneven material microstructure (or molecular level grain distribution) at subzero temperature in steel—as the primary cause. In this of course, I assumed that connections were taken care of. It appears they weren’t.

• My last paid hardcopy newspaper subscription was in 1999.
• My last paid periodical subscription was fairly recent—in 2007.
• Television and the internet are two primary mediums I get my news from. Television for generic news; and internet for news and opinion on subjects I am interested in. I rarely see duplication of the same news in both mediums.

There are exceptions of course—like the entertainment and sports related news, for example, where I find Television more convenient as a medium than the internet. I have begun to avoid reading film reviews, or sports analysis written in excruciating detail in recent times. (It stops being fun—not to mention hurting eyes.) Apologies to Blogical Conclusion, but I’d rather watch Anupama Chopra’s half-hour segment, once a week, on NDTV for what’s on and what’s not.

1. For where this post is coming from, you might want to read Clay Shirky’s What Newspapers and Journalism Need Now: Experimentation, Not Nostalgia.