Uniform Resource Locator

Weaving the web

URL as ‘fabric’. Addresses vs. links. Politics and possibilities of association and relation, but are all links created equal? Economy, infrastructure.

Web 1.0: Industrialization of the hyperlink

Search Engines and PageRank

http://cdn.wiels.org/website/images/dbfiles/7746/large/Open-Skies.jpg
https://www.constantdullaart.com/olia/summer/

Web 2.0: from user-generated linking to platform-aggregation

From manually created links to ones created by software.

Social Media buttons and link automation.

Layering

QR codes
https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/

URL Shortening, Link wrapping. Removal and disappearance
https://resource.constantvzw.org/links

Universality and uniformity

Alphabet and computing. Universal language
In 1996 already proposal for more universal uniformity: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/1996Dec/0038.html

Different ways the alfabet enters. ASCII and Unicode

Unicode as a new universal layer
https://www.unicode.org/Public/UCD/latest/
http://www.unicode.org/consortium/members.html

Internationalizing Domain Names

http://idn.jodi.org/
https://www.charset.org/punycode

Buying and selling

ICANN: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
‘The private sector, non-profit corporation created in 1998 to assume responsibility for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions.’ https://www.icann.org/
From IP-addresses to Domain Name Spaces:

• Root servers A-M, root zone file https://root-servers.org/
• Top Level Domains (TLD) https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1591 ccTLD, gTLD
• Registrars and resellers (or: re-renters?) and labels
• whois https://who.is/dns/constantvzw.org or https://be.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=constantvzw.org or …

Domain squatting, Domain trading, Domain brokers
https://sedo.com/us/
https://sedo.com/search/?itm_campaign=BuyDomains&itm_source=Auction_Calendar&itm_content=GreatDomains&itm_term=US&listing_type%5B0%5D=4&language=us&auction_event%5B0%5D=525
… and emoji domains, of course.

URL shortening as resource and location

URL-interfaces to track and quantify ‘clicks’, the basic unit
links as ‘brands’, dashboards for metrics and analytics.

A good analysis of this evolution in the modes of making and reading of URLS and hyperlinks can be found in Anne Helmonds’ The Algorithmization of the Hyperlink.

Turning locations into resources
http://computationalculture.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/shorturlimage1.jpg

How is the wrapping experienced (or not)
https://resource.constantvzw.org/links/

Link Branding = Turning your links into a resource
https://cutt.ly/login u=vincenzomarazzi@yopmail.net p=Resourc3
https://rebrandly.com/features

Organizations that do not fit anywhere else

ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
organizations that didn’t fit anywhere else. Some non-
government organizations may fit here.

1. ICANN lifts price cap from .org domains
2. Public Internet Registry (PIR) -> owned by non-profit Internet Society (ISOC) -> bought by Ethos Capital
3. Ethos Capital buys the registry

https://techreport.com/news/3467106/org-domain-sold-to-private-equity-firm-price-caps-dropped/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/03/internet_society_org/

Linkrot and cool URls

When links break. Resource cannot be found (404).
https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

A certain pressure towards maintaining links for different reasons from different directions.
https://web.archive.org/
https://perma.cc/ addressing a need for reliability coming from academia and the judiciary system ( proof and reference must be preserved. )

Also a material picture of the state of the relations.
Alexei Shulgin, Refresh https://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9610/msg00000.html