The Luddite Web

Today's New York Times has a fascinating article on Belgian inventor Paul Otlet. Born in 1868, he had some amazing insight for a man born before even electricity was commonplace:

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or 'electric telescopes,' as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a 'réseau,' which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, 'web.'

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Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. 'This was a Steampunk version of hypertext,' said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.

Otlet’s vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough. 'The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century,' Mr. Kelly said. 'It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions.'

Otlet began work on his plan - he and associates created a database of 12 million index cards and accepted research requests from around the world on various topics. But a withdrawing of support from the Belgian government and World War II killed it.

Still, that's pretty neat, huh?