As We May Work Andy van Dam Brown

As We May Work Andy van Dam Brown University April 17, 2008

Roadmap v My personal and selective history of hypertext Ø from Vannevar Bush's Memex to Ø Engelbart's NLS/Augment to Ø Brown's HES/FRESS/IGD and Ø Intermedia to Tim Berners-Lee's WWW v The age of the traditional WWW v Web 2. 0/Enterprise 2. 0 v Traction Team. Page example v Speculations on the future of Enterprise 2. 0 Ø what facilities are still missing Ø what is needed to provide them Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 2

Vannevar Bush – As We May Think Memex (1945) "As We May Think", Vannevar Bush in The Atlantic Monthly, 1945 Ø purpose: to cope with information explosion Ø personal use Ø microfilm-based, multi-media Ø associative trails and professional trail blazers Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 3

Memex – antecedents Japanese linked poetry Renga and Basho Western religious commentaries Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 4

Engelbart's NLS (o. NLine System) - 1968 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 5

Engelbart's NLS (o. NLine System) - 1968 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 6

Engelbart's NLS (o. NLine System) - 1968 "Mother of All Demos" (1968) v Bush's vision influenced Engelbart to devote his career to augmentation of human intellect v Ø Ø gestation since 1951 forerunners of NLS in the mid-60's Focus – collaborative work groups v Technologies introduced v Ø Ø mini-computer + video terminals with mouse, keyboard collaboration tools for co-located as well distributed groups o o simultaneous voice and screen sharing chalk-passing protocol for control of cursor Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 7

My personal history - overview v Brown University projects Ø 1967: HES (Hypertext Editing System) o Ø 1968: FRESS (File Retrieval and Editing System) o v v partnership with Ted Nelson influenced by HES and Engelbart's NLS Ø 1979: IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents) Ø 1982: Intermedia 1990: EBT (Electronic Book Technologies) 1995: Brown/MIT Bush Symposium in honor of 50 th Anniversary of "As We May Think" Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 8

HES (Hypertext Editing System) - 1967 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 9

HES (Hypertext Editing System) - 1967 v Inspired by Theodor Nelson's vision of hypertext Ø v v Ted as co-designer Experiment with non-linear information structures Ø based on fine-grained links Ø e. g. cross-linked database of electro-plating patents Read/write tool, no access controls Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 10

HES (Hypertext Editing System) - 1967 v Simple graphical interface Ø Ø commands provided via simple function keypad. insertion points and character strings indicated with light pen v Produced NASA Apollo documentation v Expensive System 360/50 mainframe hardware Ø with expensive IBM 2250 vector display Ø thus single user Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 11

FRESS (File Retrieval&Editing System)-1968 v v Influenced by HES and Engelbart's NLS Ø information structures o preserved HES's arbitrary length text o fine-grained links now bi-directional and tagged o completely difference data structures for scalability Ø user interface o vector graphics, soft fonts, e. g. , Greek o added NLS-style hierarchy, and access and viewing controls ("view specs") down to the character level o supported both a primitive GUI and an NLS-like command language for less capable terminals Ø intrinsically multi-user via time-sharing system and cheap terminals Used in production in a variety of courses and projects Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 12

FRESS (File Retrieval&Editing System)-1968 v Influenced by HES and Engelbart's NLS Ø information structures o o Ø user interface o o o Ø preserved HES's arbitrary length text plus optional NLS-style hierarchy fine-grained links now bi-directional and tagged emphasis on scalability, e. g. , new data structure both a primitive GUI, and for less capable terminals, an NLS-like command language access and viewing controls ("view specs") down to character level vector graphics, soft fonts, e. g. , Greek intrinsically multi-user o time-sharing system and cheap terminals Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 13

FRESS (File Retrieval&Editing System)-1968 v v Used in production in a variety of courses and projects 1975 - used in a course on "Man, Energy, and Environment" Ø v 1976 - used in a course on the critical analysis of British and American poetry Ø Ø v sponsored by Exxon sponsored by NEH (National Endowment for Humanities) rich interlinked corpus of poetry, professional criticism, and student commentary based on hundreds of source documents First online collaborative scholarly community Ø every student and instructor read and commented on everyone else's online analyses Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 14

IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)-1979 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 15

IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)-1979 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 16

IGD (Interactive Graphical Documents)-1979 v Inverted the text focus of HES and FRESS Ø v o overviews with directed graphs of page icons o simple animations o automatically generated timelines, tag lists for visual searching Oriented towards online e-books Ø v emphasized primarily for technical documentation, e. g. , sonar systems Context-sensitive links and trails Ø Ø access control history Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 17

Intermedia – IRIS (Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship) - 1982 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 18

Intermedia – IRIS (Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship) - 1982 v Object-oriented on all levels Ø v Separate link database Ø v allowed multiple link sets ("webs") over same content Unix-style access control Ø v arbitrary nesting of objects person-group-world: read-write-execute Used in multiple courses Ø cell biology Ø planetary geology Ø Context 32 (a literature course) Ø . . . Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 19

EBT (Electronic Book Technologies) - 1990 Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 20

EBT (Electronic Book Technologies) - 1990 v Spinout from Brown University v Combined two previously unconnected technologies v Ø hypertext Ø SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) Commercial product Ø focused on real-world needs of groups, e. g. , Boeing Ø production and use of technical documentation Ø stylesheet-driven behavior and appearance ² Dyna. Text- standalone reader ² Dyna. Base – content management platform ² Dyna. Web – browser-based reader Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 21

Summary of pre-WWW contributions v Non-linear & multi-media information structures Ø branching trails within bi-directional graphs, even hierarchies. . . Ø bi-directional, fine-grained, tagged links Ø conditional links v Read/write interactive user interfaces v Access & viewing controls v Multi-user v Metadata However: all were closed systems! Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 22

The age of the traditional WWW – 1991 v Strengths from the beginning Ø from closed systems to open and universal access Ø scalability Ø textual links you can edit and email Ø Ø a platform that makes it possible to build search engines and other apps over WWW. no one had to ask permission. much lower cost of entry for application development Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 23

The age of the traditional WWW – 1991 v Strengths from the beginning Ø open and universal access Ø scalability Ø textual links that can be edited and emailed Ø universal development platform Ø o Web-centric crawlers, search engines, and applications o much more lightweight, agile development therefore, much lower cost of entry for application development o enables ASPs (Application Services Providers) Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 24

The age of the traditional WWW – 1991 v Weaknesses Ø read-only; authoring became a form of programming o HTML lost the huge advantage of SGML's generality, e. g. locked into predefined tag set § Ø Ø Ø XML can be thought of as modern SGML page-replace to follow a link; no visualization of "you are here" non-permanent and thus fragile (the dreaded 404!) Note: some of these limitations are browser limitations rather than intrinsic Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 25

The age of the traditional WWW – 1991 v Weaknesses Ø read-only + forms Ø authoring became a form of programming o HTML lost the huge advantage of SGML's generality § locked into predefined tag set § XML can be thought of as modern SGML Ø links as unconditional & uni-directional 'goto' pointers Ø loss of context - no visualization of "you are here" Ø non-permanent and thus fragile (the dreaded 404!) Ø Note: some of these limitations are browser limitations rather than intrinsic WWW limitations Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 26

Web 2. 0 – "Back to the Future" Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 27

Web 2. 0 - forces driving change v Technical Ø Ø v WWW platform and applications pervade all areas of life lightweight interactive tools lower development barriers vs. traditional transactional ERP suites Social Ø social network is THE incumbent technology for young adults o Ø Ø v "Next. Gen" lives on web and does instant communications open source movement collaborative and emergent (bottom-up) intelligence as change drivers Business Ø Ø employees expect their corporate environment to work like the web new communication tools lead to breakdown of traditional hierarchy o Ø Ø Ø virtual organizations emerge within old structures niche markets become viable due web-based marketing – "long tail" design cycles accelerate; product lives measured in months crowdsourcing ("open innovation") experiments, e. g. , Proctor and Gamble Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 28

Web 2. 0 –> Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 29

Web 2. 0 - components v User experience Ø Ø Ø v Tools for users Ø Ø Ø v blogs, wikis, social networking, e. g. , My. Space, Face. Book, Mixi, and location-based mobile social networks, e. g. , Gy. PSii tagging ("social bookmarking"), collaborative filtering, 3 D virtual worlds, e. g. , Second Life, multi-user online role-playing games, e. g. , Lord of the Rings Online search engines aggregators, e. g. , RSS news readers mashup tools, e. g. , Google Mashup Editor, MSFT Popfly, Yahoo Pipes web authoring, e. g. , Adobe Creative Suite™, Microsoft Expression™ Google applications, e. g. , Maps, gmail, . . . and Google Apps Tools for developers Ø Ø Ø Ajax (Asynchronous Java. Script and XML) for expression and UI Adobe Flex™ & Microsoft Silverlight™ web application frameworks SOA (Service Oriented Architectures) for Web services Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 30

World Wide Telescope Features Multiple wavelength sky image sets Simple rich media authoring across multiple image data sets Links to image and data sources Robotic telescope control Seamless zooming and panning Communities and KML support Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 3 D Earth, planets and panorama data sets Gigapixel image panoramas 31

Web 2. 0 v Web 2. 0 provides: "capabilities" Ø interaction – moving from passive read-only back to active medium Ø collaboration support Ø v v Enterprise 2. 0 but also vulnerabilities: much use of the web is still "too trusting", e. g. , wiki sabotage and cyberterrorism Enterprise 2. 0 needs: "guarantees" Ø stable content and links – robustness Ø ability to work within boundaries – security Ø easier peer-to-peer awareness and collaboration - lateralization Example: FRESS viewing and editing controls o an early (1972) example of boundaries and spaces, e. g. proposal = main body + summary budget + breakout pages with (elided) salaries Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 32

Traction Team. Page example Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 33

Traction Team. Page example v v Robust, secure, and linked 'spaces' Ø interoperates with WWW Ø version control of internal structure Ø permanent content and links Ø wiki and weblog style editable hypertext in spaces Spaces define boundaries for customer, partner, and internal group work Ø spaces carry role-based and individual permission Ø search results, tag clouds, drill-down use permissions Ø provides global views over many active spaces Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 34

Future - what facilities are needed? v (1/2) Relationships among groups in business are important but difficult to visualize Ø Ø Ø when entering a space (office, conference room, or auditorium) o you know who the audience is, and o you know how to interact, using many social and visual cues should be just as clear and simple in social software systems Enterprise 2. 0 software designers o Ø must learn to think more like architects, who design spaces for social purposes but the Internet is much bigger (and more complex, even more potentially dangerous) than any physical building Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 35

Future - what facilities are needed? (2/2) v Data security and permanence Ø corporate data critical to the survival of the enterprise o v heterogeneous combination of transactional and semi-structured data, e. g. , databases, memos, email, white papers, websites, . . . Ø Enterprise 2. 0 activities must integrate traditional data Ø Web-based SOA “applications” aggregate distributed functionality o via WSDL (Web Services Description Language), XSD (XML schema), … o dynamic, real-time data access o interconnection of multiple heterogeneous data sources and functions o but because of potential of introducing “exploits”, need guarantees!!! Above all – ease of use! Ø legacy technology inertia very hard to overcome Ø needs strong incentives to change Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 36

Future – what do we need to do to make it happen? v v v Learn from historical experience and apply it Ø assign economic value to lessons learned Ø expect everyone to be able to write as well as read Ø develop simple, effective metaphors and models Learn how to design well for group use Ø to support very large numbers of groups (scalability!) Ø make social software easy to understand use, safe Educate students and teach employees Ø in development and effective use of Web 2. 0 tools Ø and applying Enterprise 2. 0 principles Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 37

“To Infinity and Beyond…” Enterprise 2. 0 Summit 2008 Tokyo – April 17, 2008 38 38