Lars Helgeland says that Ted Nelson called Web sites “decorated directories.” The Web has failed the expectations of the Web’s visionaries, Lars says. Topic Maps can help.[Caution: Live-blogging]

Web sites have become reflections of their technical structure, which is usually hierarchical. Knowledge is not natively hierarchical. Knowledge works through people associating ideas.

Lars shows examples of sites redesigned using topic maps; they use the knowledge representation of topics maps without using the familiar circles-and-lines display. “We need to see portals as layered architecture, where content is independent of both presentation and the underlying technology structures.”

[Tags: topicmaps lars_helgeland ]

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