The Resurgence of the "Link" Page

Back in the 90's, when many of us were just discovering the potential for the internet, you could often spot a links page on most "personal" websites. Usually these links took you to related people and pages. This of course, was the first leanings towards a hyper environment in which data was analogously connected. But as webpage design evolved, the "links" page was pretty much 86ed on professional webpages by the early 2000s.

So I was a bit surprised when recently perusing the artist websites on Artist A Day to find the return of the "links" page. And now I'm curious what has prompted this return. The original links pages seemed to focus more on sites with similar content, in other words, "here's someone else doing the same thing I'm doing." And the links took you from one static content page to another. But it seems that this second wave speaks more to the interconnectedness of the internet. And that mimics social media in a lot of ways. "Here are people I know." "Here are other people doing interesting, interconnected stuff."

I don't know if I've totally resolved these differences to my personal satisfaction yet, but you will notice that I do indeed have links to other pages on this blog. Some of the people I know and some I don't - but they are all doing something, maybe not the same way I am, but in someway they all embrace the interconnectedness of media and ideas.