For the Bray/Bosworth services cabal? You know, the technological order that agitates against complexity, rigidity, overdesigned clients and disconnected computing? That proselytizes simply designed, extensible services that can be delivered to even simpler clients over the network? If so, someone let me know, because I’m well on my way to becoming a card carrying member. My latest step down the path comes with Bosworth’s latest missive, which is actually the script of a talk he gave at ISOC04. I won’t bother to rehash all the points I agree with, because I’ve done that before (here, here, and here) and a.) you’re probably all sick of hearing it from me by now, and b.) the piece backs up nearly every contention it makes. It’s comprehensive, creative and rooted in an understanding of the intrinsic supporting – rather than leading – role technology needs to play.
I will, however, try to emphasize one point and tie it a notion of Sun’s Simon Phipps. The idea is that content is indeed the value (think email), but that there is a certain subset of general content that is far more valuable than the rest, because it’s at root descriptive.
Bosworth describes the basic content point succinctly here:
What does this mean to you? Think of the radio. When it was a novelty, the real value was in the radio itself. There was relatively little content, but lots of people wanted the radio. At a certain point, however, radios got good enough and transmission got good enough and the value ineluctably swung to the content. This is why the DRM fights are so bitter, why PodCasting is so revolutionary, why Howard Stern was paid so much to play on a private radio model. Thats where the value is. We have arrived at the same point for computing. The value is neither in the computers nor in the software that runs on them. It is in the content and the softwares ability to find and filter content and in the softwares ability to enable people to collaborate and communicate about content (and each other).
It’s the find/filter bit that I think is most important there. I won’t dispute the value is in the content, but as he notes later in the talk, it’s not a matter of all content being held equal. To wit, I typically find and obtain new music through a set of grouped editorial filters consisting of indie radio shows (such as those here or here), album reviews (Amazon is a favorite) and personal recommendations from friends. I, in turn, peform this role for other friends – as I put it to them – “I listen to it all so you don’t have to.” The content therefore is absolutely what has value for me, rather than any special interface or technical widget from these sites or services.
But it’s not just any content I’m interested in, it’s a special kind – the content that allows me to find/filter. Simon Phipps might call it editorial content. What I mean is metacontent that describes, and thus allows me to filter, other content, leaving me with only the items of I’m interested in (or close to it).
I’d been meaning to talk about his for a while, but more and more I’m subscribing to and consuming content from filters – editorial filters. More and more of my news, for example, is coming second hand through blogs (or invidual brands, if you prefer) that I trust. The New York Times Technology RSS feed, for example, has a lot of stories that are of no relevance to me (and you’ll note that I’m no longer subscribed to that feed). So instead I pick them up through the filter or lens of my OPML file. Rather than a flood of items from multiple outlets on a daily basis, I read a few per week – the ones that I want to read. That content – often something such as simple as a quick description and a link from BoingBoing – is what I need to manage my information overload. That’s the value – the content that directs me to content I like, and perhaps more importantly, let’s me skip content I don’t like.
Implicit in these filters of course is the risk of missing information; either through deliberate censorship (much less likely given the channels I’m consuming from) or the simple fact that no person or technology can know my preferences perfectly. But that’s where the network comes in – by subscribing to multiple, filtered information channels – I can consume an order of magnitude more information than if I tried on my own. As Bosworth puts it,
This is what will be new. In fact it already is. You want to see the future. Dont look at Longhorn. Look at Slashdot. 500,000 nerds coming together everyday just to manage information overload.
Anyhow, what it comes down to is that I think – again – that Bosworth is right. But all content, in my view, is not created equal – and I think Phipps’ notion of editorial content is where the premium is, at least for now.
