I don't understand what the article is actually criticising. Today's "deep links" aren't really about the links at all - after all they're just URLs, nothing s

I don't understand what the article is actually criticising. Today's "deep links" aren't really about the links at all - after all they're just URLs, nothing special there. No, today's deep links are about publishing those links in a way that allows 3rd parties to find them easily. So, if you're working in television for example, you might be interested in having a standardised way of publishing URLs in your program guide data, such that someone can access your catchup service directly from their television's program guide application, without having to first load your catchup application. Or in another domain, Yelp might publish an "API" describing how to construct a URL for a restaurant, using eg the restaurant's name plus post code plus street name. It might look something like this: http://yelp.com/The_Olive_Tree/92100/Canal_St http://yelp.com/The_Olive_Tree/92100/Canal_St (I haven't looked, maybe Yelp really does do something like this....) Knowing this, a mapping application can now open the Yelp page for a restaurant directly from inside the mapping app. Great! Or maybe you're a serious foodie - enough that you use a restaurant journal app. This app can automatically extract the Yelp data to round out your entry, or alternatively, post your thoughts on the restaurant. If there is a backend to this journalling app, it could even automatically insert deep links to your other journal entries so that other users can see what you thought about other restaurants. There is power in this idea, and it joins up with other ideas such as the semantic web. At any rate I personally see deep links as a positive development.