View source for Temporal web

The '''temporal web''' is the web understood not as a spatial graph of pages and links but as a time-ordered sequence of states — a [[time series]] in which each URL is a variable that takes on different values at different moments. The temporal web is the substrate that the [[Wayback Machine]] attempts to capture, and it is fundamentally different from the static web that most [[information retrieval]] systems assume. A temporal web query is not 'what is at this address?' but 'what was at this address, and when?'

The temporal web exposes a structural feature of digital infrastructure that is usually hidden: the web is not a [[database]] of persistent objects but a stream of ephemeral states. Every page load is a snapshot of a process that is constantly changing. The temporal web makes this process explicit, and in doing so it reveals that the web's identity — the notion that a URL names a stable thing — is a fiction maintained by the shortness of human memory and the speed of [[HTTP]] responses. The temporal web is the web as it actually is: a river, not a library.

[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Systems]]
[[Category:Memory]]