Web Enhancement Project Progress: November 1997
CritSuite: "The Other Half of Hypertext" Web Software Demoed and Released for Free Use
Summary: New free web tools enable users to put their own comment links into any web document. Links of this new type are displayed, along with the original author's links, on a one-screen graphical display showing who agrees and disagrees with any document on the web.
Just as the original World Wide Web was created by a small group of programmers making a tool for their own use, new web tools for "the other half of hypertext" are being delivered for free public use by a tiny group of hypertext advocates. The tools were demonstrated Thursday, November 6, 8:45 PM, at a free evening session of the Foresight Institute annual conference at the Hyatt Hotel in Palo Alto, California.
Foresight Institute has set up a free web site, http://crit.org, to enable
web users to engage in Critical Issues discussions. At this site, users
can take advantage of the new technology:
- CritLink to add their own comment links anywhere in the text of any web document. For the first time, readers can "mark up" others' documents to agree, disagree, ask questions, or make a general comment.
- CritMap to display all of a web document's links—both links made by the original author and reactions by others—in a graphical display. For the first time, readers can see, on one screen, who has linked to a given web page, and whether they agree or disagree.
- CritMail, a new version of Hypermail which takes email discussions and converts them into web documents where quoted text is linked to its original location. For the first time, readers can easily see a quote as its author meant it to appear—in context.
"Pioneers of Hypertext" praise new Web tools
"The Crit toolset is another good step in Web evolution toward the complete
feature set needed to truly revolutionize how we collectively develop and
apply knowledge—in business and throughout society," said Doug Engelbart, a pioneer of hypertext as well as inventor of the computer mouse and
graphical user interface.
Commenting from Japan, Ted Nelson, the visionary hypertext pioneer whose
work inspired the Crit team, said, "At last we can annotate the Web, and
high time."
Foresight's chairman Eric Drexler, a long-time advocate of full-featured
hypertext publishing, said, "Making progress on the complex technology
issues that we face requires better connections between statements of
contrasting views. Our hope is that these new social software tools
will enable a higher level of quality in Web-based discussion."
Users read and comment on web documents by viewing them with the new tools, which run on a web server. Users need no additional software of any kind; the tools work with their web browser.
The developers of these technologies—Ka-Ping Yee, Terry Stanley, and Peter McCluskey—are providing source code for free use and modification by individuals and companies who wish to use the new tools on their servers.
About the Foresight Institute
Foresight Institute (http://www.foresight.org) is a non-profit foundation
specializing in education on emerging technologies. Foresight sponsors
the development of social software designed to improve the quality of
critical discussion of public policy issues in technology.
For more information, contact:
Foresight Institute
tel: 650-917-1122
fax: 650-917-1123
email: foresight@foresight.org
Get involved. Help the Crit Project provide "the other half of hypertext"
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