In the days of broadsheet newspapers, premium advertising was found ‘above the fold’, but why should we apply the same ideas to webpages, apps, or even electronic billboards?

The use of metaphors or similes, to describe new technology, is a convenient way to help customers visualise new ideas and functionality, but when it feeds back into the innovation itself, might we find ourselves caught in a feedback loop?

The turn of the millennium saw the emergence of ridiculous digital magazines, with draggable, numbered pages, which curled at the corners, and even made the sound of a page turning, as you dragged your mouse across the screen. Why did it take decades for us to start seeing the web as a network of contextual links, rather than a great big electronic book? By putting complex ideas into simplified boxes, do we actually inhibit innovation?

In a world of satisfying flickable web apps which reveal, rotate, and illuminate content ‘above the fold’ looks increasingly like a prehistoric tar-pit, from which some will never escape.