A fat link (also known as a "one-to-many" link, an "extended link") or a "multi-tailed link" is a hyperlink which leads to multiple endpoints; the link is a multivalued function.
The hyperlinks that are attached to the same design object can be grouped into a fat link for representational purposes, and the activation of a fat link gives a menu of the links contained in it (cf. hyperlink history list), from which individual links can then be activated.
The concept is also covered in Grønbæk and Trigg's extended Dexter model, which cites the Instructional Design Environment.
The concept pre-dates the World Wide Web. However, there have been calls for fat links to be implemented on the web (e.g. Jakob Nielsen in his Alertbox for January 3, 2005 ).
In 2007, the idea was implemented by the FatURL service.
In 2011, Brief.ly launched a service allowing to have multiple links in tabs. It followed by Links2.Me and Many.at as well as Feed2Tabs and Links2Tabs plugins for Wordpress. In 2012, Briefly.PRO version of the platform allowed anyone to run similar services on their own domain names.
Famous quotes containing the words fat and/or link:
“Mrs. Coley’s three-flat brick
Isn’t here any more.
All done with seeing her fat little form
Burst out of the basement door....”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land and water. It was a kind of water on which you could walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its surface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permitted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, and we now understand the propriety of this provision.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)