The move from ‘text’ to ‘hypertext’

Hugh McGuire posted an important thought recently. Hugh made the claim that:

The distinction between “the internet” & “books” is totally totally arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years. Start adjusting now.

This is an interesting concept, and it brings me to think:
Since links are considered gold in the online space, will we eventually get to the stage where we can do away with (Author, Date) academic style referencing and simply hyperlink to sources?

The space between text and hypertext is narrowing, especially with words like Kindle, iPad, iBooks and ePub entering our vocabularies. As Hugh says, “Start adjusting now”.

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To paraphrase the About section of Hugh’s blog: Hugh McGuire builds webby things; and writes & speaks about media, publishing, the web, technology, etc.