Sometimes, when considering what to post here, I’ll start with a passing thought and try and analyse it a little to see what depth it has, and who it relates to me. For example, the Donnie Darko article in the miniblog (on the left there), made me pause and think about thoughts I used to have as a teenage boy – family gathered round my bed in a hospital after I’d heroically saved the rest of the family from some tragedy or another.
Recently I’ve not been able to get a handle on anything that’s really hit home, well not emotionally anyway. Other areas have seen me leave some lengthy comments (some reposted here) about ‘techie’ stuff. Odd that.
Anyway I can’t be bothered analysing why as I really only wanted to explain why I reposting yet ANOTHER comment I’ve left on another site.
This time the comment is on Andy Budd’s article on bookmark management. He links to Tom Coates observations on bookmark management, a post I read at the time but didn’t comment on, and which has also been pondered by several other people.
Anyway, here’s what I posted on Andy’s site (side note: wasn’t Typekey supposed to stop us having to do this?)
I read Tom’s article, and have read others on this and similar topics. What I find MOST interesting is how we are finally getting away from an IT/technology centric way of working and realising that yes, those claims of many years ago are true. Computers can make life easier.
The iTunes parallel is an excellent one. I used to be very controlling of my Music folder – subfolder by artist then album, ID3 tags all neatly in place, hell even the filenames were under my tight control. The along came iTunes and finally I could find what I was looking for instantly and I stopped caring where things were stored. The reality is that I never REALLY cared where things were stored just that they WERE stored and that I could find them.
The reason I had my strict sub-folder hierarchy was that was the only way I could do it. Technology was constraining me.
Now, with iTunes again an excellent example, we are finally applying a concept to ‘real’ computer usage that has existed in content design for a long time. Separating the content and design (architecture).
Answer this: Why was Google such a big hit? Mainly because it was ONLY a search engine. Unlike Yahoo’s directory of directories of directories I could actually FIND things using Google.
I can’t wait for this ‘revelation’ to hit other areas, and I’m already enjoying Picasa (iPhoto equivalent) for my photos for the same reason. I don’t care WHERE or HOW my photos are stored, just that I can find them easily.
Ohh I’ve edited it slightly but only to make it more coherent.
I think the only other place this type of information organisation is an issue is within a news reader (an RSS Aggregator, not Peter Sissons), but I think most of them already have the ability to filter/collate new posts based on keyword searches.
I think the REAL question is, where else can this be applied? Where else do you struggle with just TOO MUCH information?