<story><title>Iran&apos;s blogfather: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are killing the web</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/29/irans-blogfather-facebook-instagram-and-twitter-are-killing-the-web</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>open-source-ux</author><text>A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go elsewhere. The result is ridiculous articles like this: &lt;i&gt;42 startups that grew to be worth billions in 2015.&lt;/i&gt; Not a single link to any of the comapnies mentioned in the article.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;uk.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;new-billion-dollar-startup-unicorns-in-2015-2015-12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;uk.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;new-billion-dollar-startup-uni...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another horrible trend is to hide links behind Javascript. Simple Hypertext links should &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; require Javascript to be clickable, on many websites they very often are.</text></item><item><author>aaron-lebo</author><text>&lt;i&gt;But hyperlinks aren’t just the skeleton of the web: they are its eyes, a path to its soul. And a blind webpage, one without hyperlinks, can’t look or gaze at another webpage – and this has serious consequences for the dynamics of power on the web.&lt;p&gt;More or less all theorists have thought of gaze in relation to power, and mostly in a negative sense: the gazer strips the gazed and turns her into a powerless object, devoid of intelligence or agency. But in the world of webpages, gaze functions differently: it is more empowering. When a powerful website – say Google or Facebook – gazes at, or links to, another webpage, it doesn’t just connect it , it brings it into existence; gives it life. Without this empowering gaze, your web page doesn’t breathe. No matter how many links you have placed in a webpage, unless somebody is looking at it, it is actually both dead and blind, and therefore incapable of transferring power to any outside web page.&lt;p&gt;Apps like Instagram are blind, or almost blind. Their gaze goes inwards, reluctant to transfer any of their vast powers to others, leading them into quiet deaths. The consequence is that web pages outside social media are dying.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Best part of the piece, imo.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>petepete</author><text>Our company blog is like this, I left a comment on the related LinkedIn post (that links to our own website using some URL-shortening service!) saying &amp;quot;this doesn&amp;#x27;t really make any sense without citations and providing links to the services discussed&amp;quot; and received a request to remove my comment shortly after.&lt;p&gt;The marketing team believe linking to sites other than our own drive people away. Instead they internally link to product&amp;#x2F;service pages that are often barely relevant and rarely (if ever) what anyone reading the post wants to see.&lt;p&gt;It makes me want to throw the whole thing away and start over.</text></comment>
<story><title>Iran&apos;s blogfather: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are killing the web</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/29/irans-blogfather-facebook-instagram-and-twitter-are-killing-the-web</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>open-source-ux</author><text>A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go elsewhere. The result is ridiculous articles like this: &lt;i&gt;42 startups that grew to be worth billions in 2015.&lt;/i&gt; Not a single link to any of the comapnies mentioned in the article.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;uk.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;new-billion-dollar-startup-unicorns-in-2015-2015-12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;uk.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;new-billion-dollar-startup-uni...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another horrible trend is to hide links behind Javascript. Simple Hypertext links should &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; require Javascript to be clickable, on many websites they very often are.</text></item><item><author>aaron-lebo</author><text>&lt;i&gt;But hyperlinks aren’t just the skeleton of the web: they are its eyes, a path to its soul. And a blind webpage, one without hyperlinks, can’t look or gaze at another webpage – and this has serious consequences for the dynamics of power on the web.&lt;p&gt;More or less all theorists have thought of gaze in relation to power, and mostly in a negative sense: the gazer strips the gazed and turns her into a powerless object, devoid of intelligence or agency. But in the world of webpages, gaze functions differently: it is more empowering. When a powerful website – say Google or Facebook – gazes at, or links to, another webpage, it doesn’t just connect it , it brings it into existence; gives it life. Without this empowering gaze, your web page doesn’t breathe. No matter how many links you have placed in a webpage, unless somebody is looking at it, it is actually both dead and blind, and therefore incapable of transferring power to any outside web page.&lt;p&gt;Apps like Instagram are blind, or almost blind. Their gaze goes inwards, reluctant to transfer any of their vast powers to others, leading them into quiet deaths. The consequence is that web pages outside social media are dying.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Best part of the piece, imo.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ethbro</author><text>This. I&amp;#x27;ve tried to stop reading new articles from sites that seemingly only allow inward hyperlinks to be posted with their articles.&lt;p&gt;Informally, through personal observation: if anyone has a list of actual editorial policies that preclude doing that, I&amp;#x27;d be happy to look at it!&lt;p&gt;BBC News, afaict, will typically drop an external link next to the article.</text></comment>