Thinking About the Database of Things

Great share. This video really got me thinking and made me realize that what we create is already part, and that what we create adds value not only by standing on it's own but by how it interrelates to the rest of the cloud.

Definitely inspiring.

LOVE this! Love things that make me think. Since nobody clearly foresaw what the Web would become in 6,500 days (or did someone and I missed that?) my guess is nobody knows what the next 6,500 days will bring. And that's the wonder of it, to me anyway. That this is all growing exponentially, not only in size but in directions we didn't anticipate. Those who think it's old or somehow established or 'mainstream' aren't paying attention. It's just beginning...all the time!

Your post has triggered many thoughts. On one hand I am very excited about what's happening with social media. But being part of the boomer generation and knowing that there are so many who a fearful and guarded about privacy, I'm wondering if the majority of my generation will ever catch on and for those like me, ever catch up. So much to learn, so little time...

Great talk! It's true that next step will be outside boundaries of web 2.0. But how we can make this step?
I can't image how we can annotate all this enormous volumes of data in Internet! It's a work for hundreds of BlueGene's with AI inside!
Will this database or may better to call it knowledgebase need us to use the same vocabulary and even to speak one language???

I definitely believe we're on the way to a borderless world. I can see nearly everything generated by computers from community events to voting (yep - eventually we'll be able to vote from home) and so forth. Of course, with that comes responsibility and the danger of giving technology too much power and not enough reliance on human existence.

Ok - I'm going to add one more layer to your mindmash...

Read cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker's Postsingular. I think you can download it for free at www.rudyrucker.com. If not, its worth the read for the path it takes you down. The setting is the time before and after a post-sensient artifically-intelligent global network of nanobots.

I'm reading "The Technological Society" by Jacques Ellul which is quite the tome, but gets into the building of technique in humanity's history. If you like to look at these movements within the scope of humanity, thus far into it I would recommend this book too. It was written in 1954, but is amazingly prescient. Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) spoke highly of Ellul's accomplishments with this book.

Another influential book I've read in the last year is John Henry Clippinger's "A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity" which additionally delves into the social components of human evolution.

Really loving your topics Chris!

Darryl

I have to agree with Susan to a certain point. I too am often frightened about all this sharing going on. I am new to all of this and learning as fast as is humanly possible, but as it evolves, I also see evil at the edge. If everything about me is known, not that I fear information about myself being available, but I do like my serenity and do not want visitors at my front door any more than I wanted telemarketers calling me on the phone. So I have been forced to limit what I am willing to put out there. I also have a real life that is separate and distinct from the web and the businesses that I conduct here, and being part of corporate America, I must exercise caution in what I put out on the Web. Do I want insurance companies knowing everything about me??? No, which is why I have refused to participate in any DNA capturing events. Do I want to invite everyone into my living room??? not necessarily or only at my option or request. So this brings up issues that were cause for thought and I appreciated that, but it also scares me a bit.
Lisa

the web is eating my head
no that's wrong
my head is eating the web

one database to rule them all
one naming scheme to rule them all
one language to rule them all (more english speakers in China now than in North America)

the more we work on the web
the more it works on us

the more we work on the web
the more it works like us

it will be a database (as we use the term now)
as much as we are a data base
and we are - to some degree

but we are more
we are the ability to sum up disparate data into a feeling
I feel good about that

for the web to be more than a fast way to find cargo pants
well you really want to find cargo pants you can feel good about wearing

so the web can't just be a data base
it has to know how it feels about the data

the social web, and the feeling bit exchanges now evolving like twitter and brightkite, etc...

are trying to birth trusted feeling suppliers , if they feel good about this data then I will

we all recently saw the effect of someone getting on tv and saying I feel bad about the economy - the video showed the drop in markets/feelings

dns will become data name service, yes the search engines have this but it has to come out to get in to everything
tfs = trusted feeling source, right now a million volunteers but who do you trust?


i trust a million darts being thrown at a target, trying to fulfill a need, so it (I'm feeling it) is on its way

tweet businesscoachoh

I don't think the Internet now is all about sharing. I think its all about communication. Totally different.

That video keeps stalling, but if it's anything like Kevin Kelly's speech last year via TED looking back at the first 5,000 days of the web and projecting ahead at the next 5,000 days -- http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_nex... -- I know why you bring it up, Chris.

And I agree completely, though perhaps because I grew up reading too many William Gibson novels and flipping through too many Buckminster Fuller photographs.

It is all about the data. At the end of the rainbow, what we want is information. Web 2.0 is good at knowledge-conferring...it is not good at data-organizing.

I think the future is definitely in the linking of information “a database”, not in the traditional database terms, but in a new model, the internet database. This will allow for the linking of all kinds of commercial information. The dissemination of commercial information is the way advertising and promotion is going. Not only commercial information, but “open” commercial information. I call it “Open Marketing”. Open Marketing is the dissemination of commercial information in an open fashion. Be it copyleft, creative commons or any other type of limited rights model. This allows anyone to use the information to help promote their business, products or services. It’s coming and it will revolutionise business as we know it.

more or less just semantic web taken to the next level. The real issue is what kinds of data gets stuck in the cloud. Most data will be want to try private

From Dave's post:

"When I last visited Fry's I wished I could hide all the items on the shelf that don't match my search criteria."

I've had that feeling, too!

I was at Whole foods to prepare for my first-ever foodie cooking experience.

Where are "tumeric" and "shallots"? What do those things even look like? As I entered the store I thought: "No biggie, I can find anything. Doesn't matter that I've never heard of it."

And then I panicked: "This isn't Borders. There's no search!"

When I calmed down, I asked a store employee for help. Google is much better at hiding its disdain for my culinary ignorance!

Consider also the advances in the user interface to access this database of all things. For example, with devices that combine location awareness and a camera, it's possible to overlay data in realtime over your surroundings. So, for example, you could spot a restaurant as you walk down the street, fire up your mobile device, and immediately have access to user ratings, prices, and other data as a visual overlay to your point of view. I think this type of interface really blurs the lines between our real world and the emerging world of data.

Love ya, Chris, but I'm really tired of the conversation about the future of the web/Web 3.0/semantic web/what have you.

I think we need to be focused on surviving the economy first, then look to the next era.

Aaron,

I understand your point, but this current financial downturn is what is needed to change the way we do business. After all necessity is the mother of invention.

Can't we do both? Shouldn't we do both?