The other day I was excerpting a piece of prose in my blog, and I found myself automatically linking to various sites to explain some of the language in the prose…

…and then I thought, just a minute! Maybe this prose can stand on its own? Maybe it’s a distraction for people to click through in the middle of a sentence, then come back and continue reading. Maybe the mere fact that something IS hyperlinked is enough to derail the reader, making them think they SHOULD follow the link, or implying that the meaning of the linked text is somehow beyond their ability to just parse without help.

It was the first time I’ve ever thought about this, probably because I’m just a casual user fumbling along on my own. I suppose links might DETRACT from the intended purpose of a piece of text.

Someday, I expect, we’ll have INSIVISBLE Apeture-like contexual links, serving more as an instant encyclopedia as opposed to a conspicuous “Hey, click here to explore the hard-coded relationships” sort of thing. That, I think, would be less intrusive.

Maybe piece of blue, underlined text will eventually look “quaint,” as garish as an embedded MIDI file or a comet cursor…