"Because we think of the news item as a basic unit of communication, when we visit a publisher’s site, we expect to find a river: a strict vertical list with the newest stuff at the top and the oldest stuff at the bottom. The river makes a lot of a sense: regular visitors need to know if anything new has been published since their last visit. Its design also suggests that new articles, like new cars, lose value the minute they are driven off the lot. The river, we assure ourselves, is democratic. Each article gets its fair shot, then floats away, forgotten and obsolescent. The river is progress. The articles being published today are better than the ones published last year. And far more relevant to the concerns of today! It has not always been so."