A better reference for the non-nanotech stuff you mention is his "Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge"[1] (which clearly cites the prior work of

A better reference for the non-nanotech stuff you mention is his "Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge"[1] (which clearly cites the prior work of Bush in 1945 and Nelson in 1978). Discussion forums as we know them today have been around since about 1978 and ad-supported publishing predates the 1800's. I can't seem to find any specific mention of what we today know as pagerank (i.e. the cumulative probability that a given user will arrive at a given page) at all in either work. [1] http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/Hypertext/HPEK1.html http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/Hypertext/HPEK1.html