The Web That Wasn't

Uploader: googletechtalks
Video Description: Google Tech Talks
October, 23 2007
ABSTRACT
For most of us who work on the Internet, the Web is all we have ever really known. It's almost impossible to imagine a world without browsers, URLs and HTTP. But in the years leading up to Tim Berners-Lee's world-changing invention, a few visionary information scientists were exploring alternative systems that often bore little resemblance to the Web as we know it today. In this presentation, author and information architect Alex Wright will explore the heritage of these almost-forgotten systems in search of promising ideas left by the historical wayside.
The presentation will focus on the pioneering work of Paul Otlet, Vannevar Bush, and Doug Engelbart, forebears of the 1960s and 1970s like Ted Nelson, Andries van Dam, and the Xerox PARC team, and more recent forays like Brown's Intermedia system. We'll trace the heritage of these systems and the solutions they suggest to present day Web quandaries, in hopes of finding clues to the future in the recent technological past.
Speaker: Alex Wright
Alex Wright is an information architect at the New York Times and the author of Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages. Previously, Alex has led projects for The Long Now Foundation, California Digital Library, Harvard University, IBM, Microsoft, Rollyo and Sun Microsystems, among others. He maintains a personal Web site at http://www.alexwright.org/

Tags for this video: education engedu google googletechtalks talk talks techtalk techtalks
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Read some comments

well that puts ... ( 1 year ago by robotrodeo)

well that puts things in perspective.

Go back to posting ... ( 1 year ago by tati5001)

Go back to posting those at google videos. youtube interface sucks big time.

vannevar bush was ... ( 1 year ago by rawkustime)

vannevar bush was part of the ufo cover-ups of the 40s and 50s
go to unexplianed mysteries s01e08 part 4

Yes! It was nice to ... ( 1 year ago by ClassicGarth)

Yes! It was nice to have the downloads too, except the audio was always out of sync.

He is correct about ... ( 1 year ago by myavlibrary)

He is correct about a heritage of controlled vocabularies that is being ignored. Projects like the semantic web and the ontologies that are now being built seem to ignore the classification and controlled vocabularies of the past. So much so that it appears to be either from the ignorance of the developers or an arrogant snub of centuries of thought and development.

test ( 1 year ago by BradNeuberg)

test

Thanks! Very ... ( 1 year ago by positiveexperience)

Thanks! Very informative.

Man, I want a ... ( 1 year ago by rudyiking)

Man, I want a microfiche web!!!
Thanks for sharing, very very intresting!

Great, great, ... ( 10 months ago by josuecamper)

Great, great, thanks for sharing this information. Thanks to Tim Berners Lee for creating the WEB.

Check out Paul ... ( 6 months ago by provendelusion)

Check out Paul Otlet's video... pretty cool. pretty ancient... and still possible.

Classification and ... ( 5 months ago by BiffChunksteak)

Classification and controlled vocabularies are not forgotten. Not by library information science, anyway. You see, us librarians, we tend to hold on to things just a little bit longer than your average software developper. Even the really old and uncool stuff doesn't get the boot as long as we can imagine any decent future use for it. You know, 'in case shit'.

How come this kind ... ( 5 months ago by beancube2008)

How come this kind of engineering work developed into something that common human beings cannot be able to understand information they were distributed, like unreadable hydro bills? Is it a bug in the logic?

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everyone forgets ... ( 4 months ago by boxa888)

everyone forgets the first internet. nikola tesla made a internet 100 years ago, with cell phone devices, it was to do the same things as our internet of today does. the data was sent through the earth at faster than lights speeds, also industrial energy could be sent as well. the first commercial tower was wardenclyffe, his reseach was done at colorado springs. its a very important part of internet history, please reseach,i put up sonme basic info if your interested. thank you!!

yes his equation ... ( 4 months ago by boxa888)

yes his equation was velocity = 300,000 * cosecant (_ degrees) 1 degree from the tower is like 80,000,000,000 km/sec! going to 90 degrees(equator) the energy hits the speed of light, once it goes pasrt the equator it speeds up to faster than light speeds. its all to do with the sherical nature of the earth! its incredible this was 100 yrs ago and the internet was going to be so fast and perfect. i put up information on his system if your interested, he was the first to make the internet!

what boxa888 says ... ( 4 months ago by vaundawg)

what boxa888 says is not true. ignore him

but it is the first ... ( 4 months ago by boxa888)

but it is the first. tesla states around 1890-95 his wireless system will send power, voice, pictures,moving pictures, writing,exchange ideas, business information to all points(yes thats the internet). he also states cell phone devices as small as watches that could be used to talk to other people on the planet, his cell phones didnt need charging either lol. you have to reseach it before you say anything!

I have researched ... ( 4 months ago by vaundawg)

I have researched it. Tesla was a charlatan. He was a fraud. None of his 'devices' actually worked; he was a pioneer into electronics but was quickly overshadowed by people with devices that actually worked. His imagination ran away with him and he forgot about real invention - he just started making shit up.
There are designs out there for lots of 'flying machines' in the 1800s, too. And guess what? Only one of them really worked. Imagination is great, but results matter. Tesla didn't get any.

why have i proven ... ( 4 months ago by boxa888)

why have i proven his one wire transmission in my basement, its not properly tuned but shows the principle very well. this same principle leads to the faster than light speeds and energy transfer through the earth. well whatever, believe what you want, every one has an opinion, and everyone can have the ability to find what is reality. one wire transmission is included in it! pce

boxa, tesla was ... ( 4 months ago by vaundawg)

boxa, tesla was opposed to einsteins theory of relativity and was obsessed with refuting it. he refused to acnowledge even that space might be curved - something we observe frequently now and even rely on to determine the locations of distant heavenly bodies. his theory of how something could move faster than light has been disproven several times over. it's pseudoscience. sorry.

Yea! And did you ... ( 3 months ago by F00dTube)

Yea! And did you know that the wtc towers fell faster than free fall?

great talk. VERY ... ( 3 months ago by Valetudo21)

great talk. VERY interesting!

anyway, tick tock ... ( 2 months ago by nicegurl112)

anyway, tick tock tick tock,
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