Going against the grain of the classic surf.
I don't know whether people still surf the web like they did years ago (that might be a good topic of a future column), but it seems to me that bookmarking, though undoubtedly an essential basic of any use of the web, somehow conflicts with the basic idea of web surfing. The classic web surf is a tiny marvel of the mixing of technology and associative thinking. Starting from one simple idea we find a page and read and click, read and click, continually refining and changing the topic we're examining, forever getting farther and farther away from that first page and the information it contains.
Though it's usually a private art form, it might best be considered a form of performance art. Just what's out there isn't clear - we're not following a text created for us by an author, but instead stringing together varied and different texts that a group of authors have (only minimally) plotted out. The end result isn't the last page at which we arrive, but the entirety of the path which we've created out of the myriad possible paths available. A good web surf should be judged by the degree to which a connection is maintained from click to click, from page to page. Staying too close to the first topic shows a lack of adventure, a reticence to take chances, and the tabulation of points at the end would take this into account. On the other hand, jumping from topic to topic without any coherent string that ties pages together isn't a display of associative clicking, but rather only of empty bravado. The success of a true virtuoso web surfer would be in his or her ability to show the audience that although he or she has moved constantly from topic to topic, there's continually been a center that has been the focus of the entire surf.
But what does all this have to do with bookmarking? Ah, that's precisely the point. Bookmarking is stopping, placing periods on the page where only comas should be allowed. Bookmarking serves a very important purpose, but it's a purpose that's almost diametrically opposed to the pure experience of web surfing.
Go to: Or perhaps the breadcrumb approach?, or
Go to: Bye-bye Bookmarks