Transforming Data into "Useful" Information
Information Overload is one of the things that we are all learning to deal with becasue of the Internet. Most people just choose to ignore the bulk of the data they are subjected to each day.
What if you were able to have a magic machine that you were able to tell they types of things you were interested in and then have it act as your personal filter to represent you on the Internet to silently listen to all of the interactions on the Internet on your behalf?
Although a few years ago this would have been more science fiction then fact today we are begining to see the bits and pieces to make this a reality fall into place. It is an exciting time to be working in the next generation interent area.
There are several things coming together that are making the advent of customized information gathering. The first are the information creation tools. Blogs are all the rage and people are finally seeing that this is a way to communicate ideas and information that is very powerful. Wikis, which I call the next generation of blogs, will take the blog concept and make it even more interactive so that groups can cooperatively work on documents with a single common result. The second piece to the puzzle is distribution. RSS/ATOM addresses the whole area of how do people keep up to date with all the information that is being posted. RSS/ATOM allows a blog owner to syndicate or give notice to who ever subscibes to their blog that new information is available that you might want to see. There are literally thousands and thousands of RSS/ATOM feeds that anyone can subscribe to a any time. There are readers, a lot are free for the download, that manage the feeds and organize the results.
So now you can create information and you can syndicate thoughout the Internet. Life is good, but it is in the process of getting better. The next step is taking all of the information in blogs and scanning it all and making it available based on your interests. This area is evolving as I write this post. The evolution of "tagging content" allow content creators to note key words in their information that people would be interested in. This concept is important because we are now crossing the line of having machines start to think on our behalf (hello symantic web!). Now when content creators post their information to their blog another set of new technology is now scanning all blog entries for key words and then aggregate all of that information into a master repository (sought of a google for blog content). The next step is that you subscibe to the master aggregator by key words that are interesting to you and then you get reports customized to you requirements. There are several start ups that are delivering this service today.
There is a lot happeneing in this area and it will truly make the phrase "information is power" be true for everybody.
What if you were able to have a magic machine that you were able to tell they types of things you were interested in and then have it act as your personal filter to represent you on the Internet to silently listen to all of the interactions on the Internet on your behalf?
Although a few years ago this would have been more science fiction then fact today we are begining to see the bits and pieces to make this a reality fall into place. It is an exciting time to be working in the next generation interent area.
There are several things coming together that are making the advent of customized information gathering. The first are the information creation tools. Blogs are all the rage and people are finally seeing that this is a way to communicate ideas and information that is very powerful. Wikis, which I call the next generation of blogs, will take the blog concept and make it even more interactive so that groups can cooperatively work on documents with a single common result. The second piece to the puzzle is distribution. RSS/ATOM addresses the whole area of how do people keep up to date with all the information that is being posted. RSS/ATOM allows a blog owner to syndicate or give notice to who ever subscibes to their blog that new information is available that you might want to see. There are literally thousands and thousands of RSS/ATOM feeds that anyone can subscribe to a any time. There are readers, a lot are free for the download, that manage the feeds and organize the results.
So now you can create information and you can syndicate thoughout the Internet. Life is good, but it is in the process of getting better. The next step is taking all of the information in blogs and scanning it all and making it available based on your interests. This area is evolving as I write this post. The evolution of "tagging content" allow content creators to note key words in their information that people would be interested in. This concept is important because we are now crossing the line of having machines start to think on our behalf (hello symantic web!). Now when content creators post their information to their blog another set of new technology is now scanning all blog entries for key words and then aggregate all of that information into a master repository (sought of a google for blog content). The next step is that you subscibe to the master aggregator by key words that are interesting to you and then you get reports customized to you requirements. There are several start ups that are delivering this service today.
There is a lot happeneing in this area and it will truly make the phrase "information is power" be true for everybody.
posted by Howie Morgasen | 11:00 AM
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