Now imagine an outliner that works on the Internet. In your bibliography, you cite a source. Link to it. When a reader double-clicks on the headline, the document expands, in place. Copy the citation into another outline, and you've got another link. Linking and outlining over the Internet. This is the start of something big. [Scripting News]
This is one of the reasons I am watching what Dave Winer is doing so carefully. We're at a flux point in community development once again. Back in the 80's, we saw forums on CompuServe explode when key users could publish and review threads easily. The program my company published, TAPCIS, was one of those, and our WordPerfect Forum was an early example of niche communities around technology subjects.
Since I left CompuServe, I've been watching for the re-birth of the kinds of forum-like communities combined with software tools to make possible the efficient interaction required by the "key people" around which the community forms. Radio news aggregation is a start. Combining that with an outlining based interface that is effective and efficient could take the original successful model to the next level. Fact is, with limited time, I want to track the input of specific people first. All commmentators are not created equal. Not when MY time and attention are the cost.
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