Through the Electronic Dust

The world wide web is rich. Even by the best estimate, search engines can only crawl one fourth of it. The rest? It is waiting for you to be uncovered by other methods so that they can see the daylight in the dark and dusty recesses of this cob web where they silently weep. Hidden treasures, interesting sites, rarely heard games, articles that few read... Some do not even use the hypertext, i.e. HTTP protocol. They are all waiting to be discovered, unhidden so to speak.

Some might have already been found by spiders or bots, if only you could type those weird keywords in a search form...

Some had their day. They cherished the victory, enjoyed the glory, only to be forgotten again. A spark, a momentary fame that did not last.

Some can only be accessed via Internet Archive; if they were fortunate to be archived, of course. The servers that hosted them have probably been scrapped or thrown to a junk yard.

They are all part of our culture. If we lose them, we also lose a part of ourselves, our history. They had their share in making us who we are today.

So let us venture to the land of the awkward without further delay. We have a long road to walk; before all trails disappear, all signs removed, when there is still a chance to ask someone for direction.

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Comments

  1. lvsMay 12, 2009 at 11:47 PM

    very interesting perspective. You make it sound like a lost continent that needs to be found...and you are right.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ArchiverMay 13, 2009 at 1:10 AM

    I liked the metaphor of "lost continent" Ivs. There really are places once were very well known but are not frequented by many. Time allowing, I will present a short tour here.

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