They're the most basic technology on the web, but we underestimate just how much links are changing the way we read and write. Links give content creators a way to play with user expectations and give users a way to turn the act of reading into a form of gameplay. We'll discuss how links actually create meaning, how to use them as an artful writing tool, and how all of this is changing the very nature of knowledge in the 21st century. Questions Answered: How can links make your content more engaging? How are links turning the web into a gamespace? What are the best/worst practices for using hyperlinks? What are the benefits of a context-first approach to content? How are links enabling a fundamental shift in how we define knowledge?

1. Links as Language
A Contextual Approach to Content
Creation
#LinksAsLanguage

2. David Dylan Thomas
Content Strategist,
EPAM, Empathy Lab
@movie_pundit

3. ask early, ask often

4. links are a writing tool, like a
metaphor or a comma

5. Does this really deserve this
much coverage?
Does this really deserve
this
much
coverage?

6. the link creates a noun
where none exists

7. I guess i should update my
status more often.
I guess i should update my
status more often.

9. accelerated payoff

10. Does this really deserve this
much coverage?
Does this really deserve
this
much
coverage?

12. Does this really deserve this
much coverage?
Does this really deserve
this
much
coverage?

16. Does this really deserve this
much coverage?
Does this really deserve
this
much
coverage?

17. a link is a promise

19. deliver
play
undercut

22. a link is a footnote…
…on crack

23. three ways links have changed the
way we read

24. 1. Expectations

25. who taught you how to use a
hyperlink?

29. two most useless words to hyperlink

30. click here

31. i know I should click.
just tell me what will happen when I do.

32. David Leonhardt said in his recent
article for the New York Times that
Anthony Marx was trying to change
things.
David Leonhardt said in his recent
article for the New York Times that
Anthony Marx was trying to change
things. Click here to read that article.

33. 2. Options

35. 3. Gameplay

37. you are not a content creator, you
are an interaction designer

38. this is your content.
this is your content on the web.

39. case study

46. "The hyperlinks of 1999 were the
chief source of interactivity on the
web. They were what got me from
over here to over there.
In 2009, hyperlinks are more than
a pointer.
Hyperlinks are inclusionary.
Their purpose is to point to
something else and include it in the
given context."
-Alex Hillman

47. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

50. THIS!!!!!

51. NOT THIS!!!!!

53. three types of knowledge
via Steve Schwartz

54. three types of knowledge
via Steve Schwartz

55. “And it seems to me that that webby structure
actually is a more accurate reflection of the
shape of knowledge: it’s an endless series of
connected ideas and facts, limited by interest,
not an article that starts here and ends there. In
fact, I’d say that Shakespeare himself was a
web, and so am I, and so are you.”
- David Weinberger

56. what makes online writing online writing

57. what’s not happening

58. the web is a brain

60. long term potentiation

61. emergence

62. ants don’t take orders
ants exchange information

63. pheromone trails
links are the pheromones of the web

64. this is why security and privacy on
the web are hard

65. but if I link away from my site, no
one will ever come back

66. if you link to something valuable,
YOU become valuable

67. LOOK AT THE WHOLE BOARD

68. we create for the web selfishly
we don’t have to

69. when you give your users choices,
you give yourself data

70. stop publishing web pages

76. funny, that link worked yesterday

77. accessibility

78. new (possibly terrible) idea
open hyperlinks

81. this is your content.
this is your content on the web.

82. David Dylan Thomas
@movie_pundit
dave@daviddylanthomas.com