Info 202 Fall 2011

In this article the author explains how this type of browsing is loosing to the trend of online searching, and how the emerging model of information discovery is based on social networks instead. She describes how this allows users (the general public) to rank sites based on popularity, which would later shape the sorting and retrieval of related search results. She then goes on to point out the differences between regular browsing; which supports a less articulated idea of what a user is looking for but requires pre-organization of content, verses the the social media model; which utilizes masses of users to organize content but “tends to obscure as it illuminates”. 

In the context of the entire web, I think its particularly interesting how social curation -since its based on social rules- may ultimately create popular content that would ignore the niche. Perhaps its similar to personalization in that sense since our view on other topics ends up being more limited. I tend to agree with the notion that structured organizing systems (by category, genre or other methods) can help users have a more organic navigational experience while also preserving the exposure to unparalleled diversity of information on the web. And although its great to be able to google any topics and instantly find answers, Im certain that more and more structured browsing capability will add so much more value to the process of information discovery. 

Maybe its sheer volume and our inability to keep up structured indexing is what urged us to use alternative methods of organizing content. These can work exceptionally well for social and articulate information seekers, but there will always be those who are browsing with the hopes of discovering something new. The beauty of the Internet is that each of these users can have their way, its a question of finding an appropriate alternative to human indexing (i.e. machine learning) that can be scaled up to the vast content on the web.