A primitive, self-contained version of hypertext - one cell often achieves its full effect only after you "link" it with another, not necessarily adjacent, cell - the chart is an analog precursor of digital content, and yet you hardly ever see charts at any of the usual-suspect webzines. Perhaps their scarcity is due to the flat architecture that such publications employ: Very few have tried to control the "flow" of the user's experience in the way that print magazines do, wherein readers are gradually prepped for longer, more substantive articles by way of lists, blurbs, synopses, and charts. But it seems odd to abandon the chart simply because links obviate the interface conventions of the print magazine; in a medium where navigation often overwhelms apprehension, the demand for discrete, superficial "content experiences" should be higher than ever.

In addition, there are all the potential chart enhancements that the Web, with its capacities for animation, hypertext, and data processing, makes possible. This should be the Golden Age of the chart. There should be charts that utilize user input, charts that simulate time, distance, and any other compelling variable. Imagine, for example, a chart that plotted the entertainment industry's changing take on James Cameron. In such a chart, various topics would be ascribed to its columns and various industry figures would be ascribed to its rows. Buttons labeled with various dollar amounts would appear at the bottom of the chart; by dragging one's mouse over these buttons, the user could see how the opinions of the industry figures "evolved" during Titanic's journey from overbudgeted catastrophe to the greatest sunken treasure ever.

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