The development from the net as carrier of email messages to the World-Wide Web as repository of interconnected documents has greatly changed the dynamics of meme replication. On the Web, information is no longer distributed by sending copies of files to different recipients. The information is rather stored in one particular location, the "server", where everyone can consult it. "Consultation" means that a temporary copy of the file is downloaded to the RAM memory of the user's computer, so that it can be viewed on the screen. That copy is erased as soon the user moves on to other documents. There is no need to store a permanent copy since the original will always be available. That does not mean that replicator dynamics no longer apply: the interested user will normally create a "bookmark" or "link", i.e. a pointer with the address of the original file, so that it can be easily retrieved later. A link functions as a virtual copy (also called an "alias" file), which produces real, but temporary, copies the moment it is activated.
The success of a web document can then be measured by the number of virtual copies or links pointing to it: the documents with most pointers will be used most extensively. There are already web robots, i.e. programs which automatically scan the Web, that make "hit parades" of the documents which are linked to most often. For example, it is likely that a reproduction of the works of Van Gogh on the Web will be much more popular in number of pointers than the work of some unknown 20th century painter. (Heylighen, Francis, 1997)