Ted Nelson's Xanadu is amazing in that its ideas predate the internet (timesharing systems where the "new thing" then). Unfortunately Nelson made it far too co

Ted Nelson's Xanadu is amazing in that its ideas predate the internet (timesharing systems where the "new thing" then). Unfortunately Nelson made it far too complicated and constraining for anyone to ever put to practical use[1]. In some ways I think Autodesk's funding may have hurt more than it helped because it allowed him to continue working in an environment free from the feedback of an actual user community. Tim Berners-Lee's genius is that he took the good ideas of Xanadu and other systems that made sense in the context of the internet, released something early that his users could actually use and more often then not focused on addressing their actual concerns instead of his own imagined ones. [1] - Xanadu Original 17 rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu#Original_17_rules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu#Original_17_rule...