

The failed promise of deep links - steven
https://medium.com/backchannel/the-failed-promise-of-deep-links-aa307b3abaa5

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gkop
The narrative in this post doesn't jive with my experience. Deep links on the
web have been deep links on the web for a long time, nobody ever forgot about
them. "Mobile deep linking" is the phrase that belongs in quotation marks, as
it is a new and confusing appropriation of the phrase "deep link" to extend
beyond the web into native (non-web) mobile apps. To anyone paying attention
to trends in the web and in non-web apps, the conclusion that "mobile deep
links" (perhaps "app links" is more descriptive, but it seems to have been
taken by a specific implementation [0]) will never deliver on the promise of
the web is obvious.

[0] [http://applinks.org/](http://applinks.org/)

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tootie
Solution: Stop building apps for your content. That's what the web is for. If
deep-linking is a requirement, it's probably not well-suited to an app.

~~~
dheera
I agree with this conceptually.

Unfortunately mobile web pages can't run background processes, can't launch
AJAX requests to arbitrary domains, speak UDP, do file I/O, and numerous other
things, which is why people end up writing apps.

Also mobile web browsers still suck, unfortunately. Safari still hasn't gotten
its act together with simple stings like scrolling, and is riddled with CSS
bugs of sorts if you try to do anything advanced with HTML5 (e.g. pull to
refresh, swipe gestures). It's almost like Apple is deliberately refusing.

~~~
untog
_Unfortunately mobile web pages can 't run background processes, can't launch
AJAX requests to arbitrary domains, speak UDP, do file I/O_

Background processes, cross-domain AJAX and file I/O actually _are_ possible
now, at least to certain extents. It's getting a lot better, but as you say,
Apple drag their feet at every opportunity.

~~~
mcherm
Apple gets a 30% cut of all money made on apps, and they don't get this cut
for web pages. No wonder they're dragging their feet.

~~~
jdmichal
I'm far from an Apple fan, but this statement is so intellectually lazy I have
to counter it. The honest fact is that 30% of zero is zero. If having a
webpage would be an option, it's overwhelmingly likely that the webpage would
be free to access. And if an app is simply a more enabled replacement for the
webpage, then the app is also overwhelmingly likely to be free.

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TorKlingberg
Deep linking between apps on Android almost works for the kind of apps that
are really just specialized browsers. For example if I am in a Reddit app and
click a link to an HN comment thread, it can open the thread in the HN app. In
practice it may fail for various reasons:

* The HN app has no registered to be opened for HN URLs.

* The HN app opens, but ignores the URL and just shows the front page.

* The Reddit app is using a built-in browser that does not (or cannot) check URL hooks for other apps.

~~~
Navarr
For app developers, deep linking works perfectly in Android. It doesn't work
100% for end users because of the problems you listed, but reading this
article is hilarious because Android has had this functionality.. forever?

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harperlee
(slightly off-topic)

I believe that part of the problem is that links do not work so well for that
initial intent; and that is (IMHO) because of the coarse granularity of that
that can be linked; while theoretically you can link to anything with a URI,
effectively they usually just point to documents and anchors of some of their
parts. And that capability must be provided by the author, so, as the problems
with the semantic web, most of the authors do not have incentives. So you are
precluded from slicing and dicing content from others and, as Ted Nelson
wanted, transcluding that part of another person's train of thought into your
own document.

So we repurposed the "link" tool to _just_ navigation.

Perhaps if we could add linkable annotations on pages of other people then we
could play easier with other people's ideas...

~~~
njharman
Extend Link syntax with CSS selectors (or something similar/lighter weight).

Although you then gain problem of people changing layout of content. Still a
lot of content is pretty static.

~~~
reallyRaoul
[http://hyperscope.org/](http://hyperscope.org/)

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antimagic
I don't understand what the article is actually criticising. Today's "deep
links" aren't really about the links at all - after all they're just URLs,
nothing special there. No, today's deep links are about _publishing_ those
links in a way that allows 3rd parties to find them easily. So, if you're
working in television for example, you might be interested in having a
standardised way of publishing URLs in your program guide data, such that
someone can access your catchup service directly from their television's
program guide application, without having to first load your catchup
application.

Or in another domain, Yelp might publish an "API" describing how to construct
a URL for a restaurant, using eg the restaurant's name plus post code plus
street name. It might look something like this:
[http://yelp.com/The_Olive_Tree/92100/Canal_St](http://yelp.com/The_Olive_Tree/92100/Canal_St)
(I haven't looked, maybe Yelp really does do something like this....)

Knowing this, a mapping application can now open the Yelp page for a
restaurant directly from inside the mapping app. Great! Or maybe you're a
serious foodie - enough that you use a restaurant journal app. This app can
automatically extract the Yelp data to round out your entry, or alternatively,
post your thoughts on the restaurant. If there is a backend to this
journalling app, it could even automatically insert deep links to your other
journal entries so that other users can see what you thought about other
restaurants. There is power in this idea, and it joins up with other ideas
such as the semantic web. At any rate I personally see deep links as a
positive development.

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austinahay
Scott's piece is great, but like all works of art, there are always counter
arguments or viewpoints. Mobile deeplinking is a complicated space...

[https://medium.com/@AustinHay/hi-
scott-8fd0e4584347](https://medium.com/@AustinHay/hi-scott-8fd0e4584347)

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soneca
Partially unrelated to both meanings of "deep link" the author identifies, the
term is very much used today in the world of affilliate marketing.

If you have a blog and want to send your reader directly to a specific product
on a ecommerce store, you create a "deeplink". A link, directly to a product
page, containing your affiliate id and all the stuff that the Affiliate
Network tracks.

~~~
k1t
That is the standard meaning, and is identified in the article: "bypass a
site’s home page, whisking you straight to some specific location or product"

(It would still be a deep link without the affiliate tracking info.)

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recursive
I didn't even realize that "deep link" got a new meaning.

