I decided to travel the simple route for the first week and read the first article, Why the Web Is Like a Rain Forest by Steven Johnson, in Technology Writings. My first thought was that the title and the main analogy Johnson was trying to use was a sort of reversal from the sort I have gotten accustomed to. After 5 biology classes I've heard just about every sort of analogy for different biological cycles and processes as lecturers tried to bring the flow of photons, ions and ATP to something more tangible. In addition, the beginning was a fond memory of yesteryear as it reminded me of my first experience with the WWW, where my 4th grade teacher would have me go to our school library and use the one computer with a modem to check the weather and other daily information.
I was relieved, however, to see that Johnson decided to go with a closer to home analogy of a poodle breeder for how the "2.0 version" of the WWW will be different from what we had before. Most of it I already knew about, and though I was not aware of Technorati services for blogs, I am certainly not surprised that someone has created such things. The comparsion of the old WWW and the new one to the cycle and efficiency of energy in deserts and jungles was interesting, and I essentially agree with Johnson there, that the 2.0 web will make information on topics of interest to people easier to find and that less information that is of interest to people will be lost in the "jungle" of the web.
However, I don't think this 1.0 => 2.0 conversion of the web is going to be as dramatic a change as Johnson believes, for most people anyways. For certain topics of high interest to people, like Johnson's example of poodles for a poodle breeder, or say, a friend's 10+ hour a day obsession with World of Warcraft and rarely going to class anymore, I'm sure that some of the new technologies Johnson talked about would be helpful. Joining an e-mail alert newsgroup, being in a blogger group, Technorati services, tagging pages with certain category labels, and finding others with similar interests through the above services can potentially be useful for a topic that is of high interest for a person. Having said that, I think one could easily become overwhelmed with the amount of information, say dozens upon dozens or even hundreds more emails per day, that is being captured and "recycled" through the new 2.0 jungle instead of being lost in the 1.0 desert. Just because I follow USC football/basketball, the Angels, the Lakers, and the 49ers doesn't mean I want to be swamped in a massive rain forest of information on them, as opposed to simply missing out on a little information here and there. And really, with as many people as there are on the web and with this number growing, managing the information intake efficiently without it consuming an undesirable amount of time may take some real effort for even just one topic of interest. As with many things in life, I believe the ability to process information on the human side is more limiting than the technological ceiling that is currently available or that will be available in the future. While I'm sure I will eventually incorporate some of what Johnson talks about to some degree in my life, I think for the moment, Google searches, following around old school links, and hearing about sites, services, and people with similar interests through friends and family will get me by without drowning me in information.
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3 comments:
hmm... i didn't think about my inbox being swamped by unnecessary emails.. GOOD POINT!
I agree. I do not use any of these services either, but then again, I am not overly immersed in blogging. Until these robot crawlers are able to filter out everything but the good stuff, I would imagine much of the information will be redundant and superfluous.
I love e-mail notifications. It's the best way to stay updated on certain topics without having to log on the page and find updates yourself. The best thing about blog sites or sites that pertain to specific interest groups is that companies will advertise a certain product to those interested viewers. With sites that bring people together, it makes it so much easier for advertisers to target people. And I love that. It brings all the information or things you want to see in one place.
But you're absolutely right. With so much information out there, I feel like I'm getting swamped with it. It's hard to retain so much. And with jungles, things do get crowded and clouded. It's difficult to see things clearly and know what to pay attention to when there is so much out there.
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