As I wrote in A Google Replacement Will Not Look Like Google, the modern idea of a search engine depends on the idea of hypertext: a network of information that references other information. After all, a search engine needs something to search and information rarely exists in isolation.

So what if I told you that social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter – those cesspools of anti-intellectualism, bigotry, and stupid dances – are the world’s most thriving hypertexts? And that social media could form the corpus of the search engine of the future? Let’s take a look.

• The Hypertext Dream
• Creating collections of knowledge
• Links as knowledge building
• Linking to the knowledge of others
• Links as call-and-response
• Links as annotation
• Product Ideas

The Hypertext Dream

In modern usage, the term “hypertext” (if it is ever used at all) is used synonymously with the World Wide Web and its hyperlink structure. After all, HTML is the HyperText markup language. But not all hypertexts are on the Web and the very idea predates modern computing.

The earliest and most alluring vision of hypertext is the Memex, outlined by Vannevar Bush. To this day, people name their informational organization products after the Memex.

But the term “hypertext” itself was coined by Ted Nelson, a visionary responsible for a fascinating, but mostly-vaporware hypertext system called Xanadu.

It is hard to hold the vaporware against him though. Nelson has many deep, original thoughts about hypertext and outlines a very concrete vision of it in Xanadu’s “Original 17 rules”. A selection of them:

• Every user can search, retrieve, create and store documents.
• Every document can consist of any number of parts each of which may be of any data type.
• Every document can contain links of any type including virtual copies ("transclusions") to any other document in the system accessible to its owner.
• Links are visible and can be followed from all endpoints.
• Permission to link to a document is explicitly granted by the act of publication.
• Every document can contain a royalty mechanism at any desired degree of granularity to ensure payment on any portion accessed, including virtual copies ("transclusions") of all or part of the document.
• Every document can be rapidly searched, stored and retrieved without user knowledge of where it is physically stored

Creating collections of knowledge

Users on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter are organically creating resource guides using tweet threads, pinned story collections, and many other methods.

Techies can say whatever they want about the open web and how easy.

• Every user can search, retrieve, create and store documents.
• Every document can consist of any number of parts each of which may be of any data type.

Links as knowledge building

Linking to your own ideas is an emerging trend. It compounds knowledge within one’s own repository of information, building molecules of knowledge out of smaller atoms.

This is currently popular within some subcultures of tech-intellectual Twitter but there’s no reason why it can’t spread to different subcultures on TikTok/Instagram/other platforms.

The spreading of threading

We're witnessing the rise of a new online medium - the threadweb. It started on Twitter, but its logic is quickly expanding to other parts of the internet. What are its origins, and how might it change the way we consume content in the future?

aaronzlewis.com

Linking to the knowledge of others

Instagram creators can link to an album or post by another creator. This creates a web of knowledge or “rabbit holes” to explore.

Because of how visibility on these platforms works, a high-value account often links (or “signal boosts”) content from lesser-known accounts. But it would also be valuable to see the reverse: a curator’s guide to a well-known creator’s content.

Links as call-and-response

The green screen, stitch, and duet features of TikTok enable users to add commentary to existing pieces of content. How cool would it be if you could go in reverse: given a web page, see all the commentary about it?

Links as annotation

More than just “hot takes,” this discourse of ideas is a powerful philosophical tool that can be used to arrive at a shared understanding.

Product Ideas

What if you just made a product that lets people do what they are doing? Creating stories and albums, embedding arbitrary content, giving them tools to express themselves and their unique knowledge.

What advantage does this have over the existing platforms? Some hypotheses:

• Monetization: Knowledge-building and curation on Instagram are used as lead-gen for other products that the creators as selling. Would consumers be willing to directly pay for access to well-curated content?
• Create an evergreen corpus of content: Most knowledge curation is done on platforms that are heavily popularity and timeline oriented. This makes it difficult to create lasting value from accumulated knowledge