Yes, it's rather an obtuse point of view that some immediately
understand, while others don't [I guess it's like Zen [:->]
Being a frequent visitor to the Web, I have been underwhelmed by
the linearity of hypertext [it's just text you know]. Although
revolutionary for its day, hypertext still places a burden on the user
to analyze, synthesize and interpret the data/information that is visited.
Even the major advances with meta-tags do not capture the 'meaning' of
of an entire document.
In a way, this is analogous to descriptors or subject headings serving to
represent the meaning of a paper or book - it's good and useful but limited.
Eugene Garfield recognized the inherent limitations of the traditional
indexing and applied citation indexing as a valid (and perhaps more useful
means) of identifying relevant documents on a particular topic.
My appoach is analogous. Need we limit our efforts to locating
information within documents on the Web, purely by hypertext links to the
metadata that represents these documents, or to the pure text of these
documents.
Instead,
can we not consider extracting or summarizing the full
text of these documents, and offer to the user the
'concepts' that the words of the document represent.
Instead, can we not present to the user the clusters of Web
documents that share common concepts, whether or not
they have similar or related metadata packaging. Can
we consider presenting to the user, the set of relevant
of documents, not as text, but as a 'information' landscape,
cityscape or InfoSphere(sm) ala VizNet in which the clusters
are represented by topographical features or a sphere with
highly relevant documents at the Point of Interest and
those of less 'relatedness' located at a distance from this
point.
Of course, the Web is Not Dead. What I posted was a vision [hey,
that's visual ! [:->] of possibilities - an extension, extrapolation,
application of current and emerging technologies to The Web Infosphere,
inspired in part by a current review I've undertaken on 'Information
Visualization' in Web and non-Web databases. For details, you may wish to
visit the project description at URL
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/BigPic.htm
My hope is to complete the review and establish the beginnings of
the clearinghouse at this URL by the end of this month [I hope]. My plan is
to use the same format, I've used for my Project Aristotle(sm) which is
a clearinghouse devoted to projects, research, products and services devoted
to 'automated categorization of web resources' accessible at URL
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/Aristotle.htm
I agree that the general ideas profiled in this posting are
provocative, obtuse, unrealistic, radical, logical, etc. and thought
afterward that it would be useful to speculate more systematically about
the future development and maturity of the Web in an article of some kind.
Thanks again for your response!
Regards,
Gerry McKiernan
Coordinator, Science and Technology Section
Reference and Instructional Services Department
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/
"The Future is Visual"