I spoke with Alan Levine about the hyperlink a few weeks ago. It was my hope that I could use the recording to help students and faculty where I work understand why it mattered that we had no permalinks in our learning management system’s course blog platform. I also wanted them to understand why knowing how to ‘speak web’ mattered to mediated dialogue and mindful communication.

I never managed to edit the video during the course and when I started editing the Skype recording I made turned out to be rather precarious. Still, I felt that what Alan and I spoke about was important. I did some tacky editing to hide some of the glitches. I hope I have done enough to at least enable those interested to listen to the content if not admire my editing skills!

We had a great talk and whilst we did not keep to the order of our planned questions, we explored below our mind walking in a meandering sort of way:

  • How would you describe the hyperlink to a martian?
  • In what ways does the hyperlink embody the idea of connection?
  • How would you explain to the martian the importance of weaving/making the web?
  • What do you mean by “the original dream of hyperlinks as being bi-directional” and how does the modern web not embody this?
  • Why should I care about the hyperlink at all?

Enjoy.