A delightful web driven by curious humans

Before Google established itself as “a pure search engine” startup, there was Yahoo! adding a thousand websites a day to a human-edited directory. What became known as Yahoo! Directory was eventually made irrelevant by algorithmic search. Google won and, several algorithmic shifts later, started infusing search with AI.

Jay Hoffman, author of The History of the Web, asks in a recent article, Can Directories Rise Again?

Here’s a good reason:

There’s an appetite for discovery of the web, driven by humans. This type of discovery is typically referred to as curation. But curators cull lists down to only the most essential finds. Surfers cast a wider net, and they may be better suited for the current moment. They find things, organize them, and share them with a world. They have a point of view.

The curator vs. surfer dichotomy feels off to me, but never mind that. The last two sentences are on point.

Surf, stumble upon what’s good and useful, and leave breadcrumbs for others. Share a link. Keep a blog. Grow a blogroll. Anything to surface and celebrate the best of the web. It won’t replace search, but it helps more than hurts.