A tooltip is updated dynamically as a user continues to hover a cursor over any displayed item for which additional information is available. The initial tooltip is terse or has one type of information, while the updates add more or substitute different information. Tooltips are created dynamically from whatever information is available about displayed items at the time. A client displays a web page, while a server identifies displayed items for which additional information is available, obtains the information, and either provides the information to the client to generate tooltips therefrom or generates the tooltips and provides them to the client.