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Memex Basics

Back to basics

Alright, so what is it that we really want from memex? It must be easy to:

  • edit content in the memex
  • add completely new pieces of material to any given memex “trail”
  • link form parts of the memex to other parts of the memex
  • comment on specific parts of the memex

And when I say these things must be easy, I mean they must be easy for the average person. Not just for you and me and a couple of other nerds. For everyone.

It’s fine if some parts of memex are hard to use or require training. But the basics should be obvious and accessible. The learning curve can be steep at some point, but it must be gentle or flat at the very beginning.

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No shared folder software forces you to use it in any given way. You must train yourself. You must invent your own system on top of what technology you already have, and you have to persist in applying it.

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What about just using Zoho/Google/Microsoft/Apple for everything?

All of these suites definitely get additional value from integrating several different apps into one. For example, you can paste a chart from a Google Spreadsheet into a Google Doc, and the chart will be automatically updated.

But:

  1. I don’t see the more integrated features used often enough — a simple screenshot and a link will suffice most of the time, for example, instead of trying to get a self-updating embed to work.
  2. There is always something missing in these suites — can’t run a bash script saved in Google Drive, can’t have a huge database in Spreadsheets, and so on.
  3. Vendor lock in is real. A simple rich text document can be easily ported. A heavily feature-dependent thing, not so much.

I do use many of the niceties of the Google apps ecosystem every day. But it’s not memex, and shouldn’t be. We have too much aggregation as it is.

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