Jaime Gago Condensing Information Systems From the Vapor Of Data

Is Metadata The Guide To Exploring The New World?

I have to admit I have been quite reluctant to leave the -virtual- security of having everything in its right place. First there was Unix and directories then came 2 alchemists and their magic algorithm aka Google Search...Make no mistake young reader less than a decade ago we were *all* fighting to keep *all* our digital files organized in a very studied folders structure.

Born in 1975 I’m not a “pure” digital native but I’m not a baby boomer either and so I’ve learned from both sides of the border. As a matter of fact it seems they share this “I just want it to work” approach apparently leading both tribes to the same point. Maybe they are guided by the sorting algorithm of the Architect.

Although I still think twice when hitting the save button, everyday I am less concerned about where the files are located. Heck, tomorrow the Network is the Computer and end user doesn’t even know what is a connection!

But let’s not shift gears too fast, what’s happening today on the GUI side of the force?
I still have my set of rules to sort my emails but I am more and more relying on searching by keywords and senders, indexing algorithms work.
I am not obsessed anymore about knowing where is my media iTunes,Winamp, iPhoto and the others are doing their job behind the curtain very well. Instead I focus on tagging helped by improving AI (faces anyone?).

When it comes to URLs I have 3 or 4 “working” bookmarks (e.g. WordPress Admin Page) in my Firefox toolbar that I constantly use, and why should I bother when modern browsers are doing such a great job at URL prediction? Algorithmagic! Social Bookmarking tools like del.icio.us is where I store my “long term” websites focusing again on tagging/searching. I also dig StumbleUpon, truth is these are more efficient to synchronize with my intelligence than were my friends and their “check this website” emails in the nineties.
I mostly get my news via RSS feeds and to revisit one I just search again by keyword. My point being outside of 3 or 4 “working” bookmarks , I exclusively rely on indexing and tagging (either social or personal) to find my way.

The fact that Apple has arguably mastered the art of the Drag and Drop pushes me even more when I’m on Os X, from one application to another Minority Report version flat, rarely browsing or saving files mostly searching and moving Data.

Spotlight has gone from fail to ok. Need to launch Firefox? Command+Space then F then I then Return: 5 keystrokes while identifying symbols (i.e. letters) I have seen around since I first opened my eyes or move my mouse around to click a symbol I have known for few years (a small image vaguely looking like an orange fox)? Verdict Spotlight:1, Dock:0 or in other terms another Search victory.

These few examples, showing a general tendency have a simple explanation, think about it on one hand a concept so deeply linked to human intelligence, i.e. language, on the other obsessive computer geek (not to say nerd) organization.

When it comes to brain data, at this point we are just scratching our cortex , something is sure though, I do not recall the place I first met my wife by browsing to /Country/City/Street/ , if anything it is more like a Geotag .
In the end it really is no mystery why Metadata is one of the keys to open the Semantic Web *pandora* box, so come on explorers let’s see where a better understanding of Human Language Entropy takes us...