The Evolving mSpace Platform: Leveraging the Semantic Web on the Trail of the Memex

Vannevar Bush proposed the memex as a means to support building knowledge in the way he says the human brain works: by association. Achieving this vision has been a core motivation for hypertext research. In this paper, we suggest first that Bush's memex reflects an interaction paradigm rather than system design. Second, we propose that Semantic Web promises to provide the mechanisms to enable these interaction requirements. Third, we propose the mSpace framework and architecture as a platform to deploy lightweight Semantic Web applications which foreground associative interaction. We propose this lightweight approach as a means to evaluate both interaction needs and the cost/benefits of using Semantic Web technologies to support them.