Those limitations notwithstanding, Otlet’s version of
hypertext held a few important advantages over today’s Web.
For one thing, he saw a smarter kind of hyperlink. Whereas
links on the Web today serve as a kind of mute bond between
documents, Otlet envisioned links that carried meaning by,
for example, annotating if particular documents agreed or
disagreed with each other. That facility is notably lacking
in the dumb logic of modern hyperlinks.
Otlet had some fascinating ideas that even now could change the way information is stored and effect how relationships between data are analyzed.
Another interesting thought: how do we find the modern geniuses like Otlet and learn from them now rather than waiting until they're gone?
> annotating if particular documents agreed or disagreed with each other.
I've had this idea before - a Techmeme-like site that displays the range of consensus, average consensus, outliers, etc. in the blogo or even twitter-sphere. I don't know much about linguistic processing but it seems that alot of Techmeme's "Discussion" Links is me-too commentary.
Another interesting thought: how do we find the modern geniuses like Otlet and learn from them now rather than waiting until they're gone?