PermaLinks
ThoughtStorms Wiki
From "yet another story about WebLogs" (December 2004) and how important they're becoming.
Unlike earlier promises of self-publishing revolutions, the blog movement seems to be the real thing. A big reason for that is a tiny innovation called the permalink: a unique web address for each posting on every blog. Instead of linking to web pages, which can change, bloggers link to one another's posts, which typically remain accessible indefinitely. This style of linking also gives blogs a viral quality, so a pertinent post can gain broad attention amazingly fast—and reputations can get taken down just as quickly.
That point about permalinks is very interesting, isn't it. It reminds me of LateBinding, although actually, in this case, it's the reverse. With LateBinding the power comes because you don't know what's at the end of the handle / address until you look at it. With a news site where you can only link to the front-page, there's a kind of LateBinding, but it disempowers you because you're not in control of what appears. Same with a link to an RSS feed. OTOH, a PermaLink is an absolute (concrete) address to a story.
Clearly, different situations different kinds of binding are more powerful.
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