Coined by Ted Nelson in 1965 in “Literary Machines”
He envisioned a world where computers would enable people to write and publish in a new, nonlinear format, which he called hypertext.
Hypertext was “nonsequential” text, in which a reader was not constrained to read in any particular order, but could follow links and delve into the original document from a short quotation.
See also: the garden and the stream
Xanadu
He also described a project called Xanadu, in which all the world’s information could be published in hypertext. He had the dream of a utopian society in which all information could be shared among people who communicated as equals.
He struggled for years to find funding for his project, but success eluded him.