The nature of meaning in the age of Google

The nature of meaning in the age of Google” a paper by my former professor, Terry Brooks.

“Google may index billions of Web pages, but it will never exhaust the store of meaning of the Web. The reason is that Google’s aggregation strategy is only one of many different strategies that could be applied to the semantic objects in public Web space. Hidden in the ‘dogs’ retrieval set of 14.5 million are special, singular, obscure, unpopular, etc., Web pages that await a different aggregation strategy that would expose their special meanings. To charge that Google has a bias against obscure websites… is to expect Google to be something other than Google. Google finds the common meanings. Many other meanings exist on the Web and await their aggregators.”

ALA + community software = ???

According to the info-commons blog, “ALA is investigating online community software.” While I commend them for putting together an RFP [which they did not do for the website] I think jumping on to the online community bandwagon when there are still serious issues with ALA’s online interactions with members [via the website, via balloting, via email lists, via opt-out initiatives] is a mistake that is going to cost more of ALA’s money for less value and more confusion for ALA’s members. But perhaps you disagree? Feel free to fill in ALA’s survey and tell them what you are looking for. My suggestions: open source platform, ADA compliant, cross-browser/OS compliant, no email feature, strong privacy policy, no opt-out crap, preferably developed in-house so that it can be modified in-house in response to user feedback. Is that too much to ask?
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