Karl Erb

In reading "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" many things come to mind,and it seems much of it boils down to Browsing versus Searching, how are they complementary, redundant, free-ing, limiting, valuable,credible, and relevant?

Shirky writes:
" Browse versus search is a radical increase in the trust we put in link infrastructure, and in the degree of power derived from that link structure. Browse says the people making the ontology, the people doing the categorization, have the responsibility to organize the world in advance. Given this requirement, the views of the catalogers necessarily override the user's needs and the user's view of the world. If you want something that hasn't been categorized in the way you think about it, you're out of luck.

Thoughts on Social Networking Software (a technological tool), Content (a social phenomenon) and principles driving Design.

By Karl Erb, internet information professional since 1986
User Experience Designer
4/8/06

Why do we read what we read? Why do we seek the content we find? How do we seek content to best suit what we are looking for – what are the indicators or criteria both prior to finding, or seeking, and after finding?

How do we respond to content (what we find), and how is our response colored by what we expected to find, or how well it matches what we sought?