On Words and Business

As information consumers, it used to be fairly easy to identify authoritative resources. If it was printed in the New York Times or Encyclopedia Britannica, we could trust the information. We counted on the publishers who, by reputation, delivered accurate and authoritative content.

These days, the internet, as with all things open to everyone and without oversight, is filled with much content of questionable quality. And, like with most things human, we seek ways to categorize and to trust. Sites like Technorati allow users to categorize content and provide authority by dint of a large number of people agreeing that a site is worthwhile. Bloggers like Seth Godin and Michael Stelzner are trusted because of the expertise and reputution of the bloggers themselves. And groups like the open-source Trusted Travel Blogs Network are created as a way to provide industry specific, independent validation.

Of course, this primarily deals with sites that are free and open to everyone. Traditional publishers who’ve adapted to the new media model are still out there, and still authoritative. And like before, still not free.

What do you think about all this validation and classification? Does it help you understand more about the information you get from a site?

Web 2.0 technology. What will this all look like to us when we get to Web 10.0? Or will everything be so integrated by that point, there won’t be a web per se?

In any case, I’ve finally stepped more fully into Web 2.0 and, I suppose, the 21st century with my video debut. Take a look and get to know a bit about me and my writing business. It should take less than 2 minutes of your life, and I hope you find it worth your time. Let me know what you think!

As someone with an masters degree in library science, I’d expect myself to be better at classifying things. And as the internet first started becoming a big thing, I was very annoyed at the lack of standardization and classification for websites and other content. Intellectually, I understood the challenges, but not in practice.

I still wish that it could be different. For example, every time I see a movie preview, when the movie has a website and they go through all sorts of URL contortions to make the name memorable and meaningful, I think all movies sites should just be name-of-the-movie.mov. Same for tv shows, although I do applaud Tuvalu’s creativity in creating a market for its top-level domain.

Then we come to blogging. Once I started this blog, the whole idea of classifying the content boggled my mind. Now, were there an existing classification system I could employ, I’d've been all over that. Instead, I had to decide the categories and how to allocate them. Suddenly, that intellectual understanding of the challenges of classifying web content became visceral.

I still wish it were different. But since I can’t even figure out the best way for this little blog, I can’t complain too loudly about everyone else.

As new technologies and opportunities change the internet landscape and the ways we connect with people online, I feel like I’m dragging behind. A few months (or years, gasp) after something is released, I’ll probably figure out a way to use it.

These days, there’s nothing bleeding edge about my use of technology. Not like in college when I built my own computer and joined an online bulletin board, long before my friends knew what I was talking about, and just as AOL and Compuserve entered the picture.

So, it was fortuitous that I discovered part 3 of the series: Anatomy of Your Online Presence. Today’s topic is the nose, and how to sniff out new opportunities.

I think I’ll start building something again.