The Knowledge Web provides an opportunity for users of all kinds and ages and interests to learn about how interactivity works. It offers the chance to experience history the way the players at the time did: full of surprise twists and turns, accidents, discoveries, friends and foes. Above all, the K-Web reveals how they never knew what was coming next. Just like you.
– James Burke
What is K-Web
K-Web is a way to explore history, ideas, and people as a living web, where each step reveals surprising connections. It aims to make interactivity feel physical, immediate, and teachable, so users can learn not only “facts” but how discovery happens.
K-Web also makes the “box” visible: every web has bias, limits, and a perspective, including Burke’s.
What we are building now (v1)
A minimal, useful interface that can replace The Brain as a default way to browse and author a knowledge web:
A multi-view UI:
Graph (plex / connectome)
Bio (hyperlinked text + media)
Timeline
Map / globe
Trails (breadcrumbs)
Optional: Spheres (time construct) as an alternative entry point
Instant cross-highlighting between views:
Hover previews everywhere (temporary)
Click travel (committed)
Built-in authoring:
Create/edit webs, nodes, and links in the UI
Save and share a web without needing The Brain
Portable data:
Export/import a web as a file or folder
Optional adapters for other sources later
Non-goals (v1)
These are explicitly out of scope for the first shipping version:
Automatic Wikipedia/Wikidata enrichment and syncing
“Burke AI avatar” assistant
Full “mystery tour authoring suite” beyond basic trail saving
Perfect global performance at massive scale
Guiding experience
Surprise and discovery: “I did not know this connected to that.”
Zero-lag feel: hovering, selecting, filtering should feel instant.
Coherence: graph, time, place, and text always agree.
“Learn by doing”: users can build webs from scratch and see results immediately.
Audience
Curious people with no prior knowledge
Students and teachers
Writers and researchers
Builders of custom webs (personal, classroom, clubs, museums)
Philosophy of time
Time is not only a filter. It is a medium for navigation. The UI should make it obvious “where you are in time”, and make time travel feel like moving through a space.