While doing some time thinking about the future of how people will consume information, we came upon the following ideas.

One of the most important developments over the past 15 years is that information technologies are creating the capability of offering customized content like never before. Television, newspapers and magazines all allowed the individual to read what they wanted, but there was a relatively high price in terms of time by the consumer of information to find what they wanted, and often this required being exposed to many things they were not interested in seeing. Furthermore, under the logic that there was a cost to the distribution of this information (costs of printing, television production costs, etc..) the requirement was that the consumer accept a heavy burden of advertising. This is often around 1/2 in print and around 1/3 in television. These outlets are extremely silent when it comes to how much influence advertisers have. They give two sets of answers to two different audiences. To advertisers they say they can deliver hearts and minds in different demographic groups. To consumers they say advertising is just the way they pay the bills, and it has absolutely no impact on their content.

If television is a good model for information distribution, why are its consumers so poorly informed? One relationship with television is clear. The more they consume the less they know, and the more false information they provide on questionnaires. A no thought zone is the actual goal of advertisers who prefer a blank slate on which they can superimpose desires. This is how both children’s adverting as well as adult advertising works. Employer communication with employees and government communication with voters works the same way. People who specialize in marketing Milky Way candy bars can easily transition to corporate comms or to political campaigns. The less informed the consumer of information, the more happy and the less work is the required of the producer of information.

Distribution Costs of Information

What has occurred with the web is the distribution costs of information (which were always exaggerated with traditional media, much like a pharmaceutical company exaggerates is R&D budget) have dramatically declined. Therefore, the logic for the necessity of providing unwanted messages has also declined.

Without realizing it, this has become our interface to information we seek to find and know. It is far superior to the methods that proceeded it. Google tells you nothing to begin the process, you tell it what you are interested in knowing and where you are interested in going. While it is impressive, it has some flaws. One of the biggest is its ranking method called back linking selects popularity over quality. It also has a class of influence peddlers who seek to cheat Google’s rankings called SEO consultants. As of 2008 Google is the king of the web. It is to be commended for having innocuous advertising compared to other media. However, will it always be the case in the future? Is something more customized to each user better?

Mix and Match

The web has its own costs for finding information, and they are much lower. With blogging software, which in a way automates the information publishing function, in addition to RSS feeds and feed readers, the ability to mix and match various streams of information leads us to wonder how this will affect information display in the future. Here are a few ideas.

Offline Media

1. The current broadcast model is not designed in the interests of information consumers but instead is designed for the needs of information producers. It exposes the consumer to many things they have no interest in and produces a rather mindless or automatic way of consuming information. For instance, it one is not interested in the stock market or the scores of various sports teams, and one resides it the US, one will be hard pressed not to be exposed to this information one way or another.
2. The current information model is based upon idea of the editor having control. Editorial control has always been justified in order to maintain journalistic “standards” but has often been used to prevent the publication of controversial topics that are critical of concentrated power. Concentrated power controls media outlets  through both direct ownership and through purchasing advertising. Thus editorial control can also be seen as a smokescreen for controlling the distribution of information that sides with concentrated power and manipulates the general population. Blogs have demonstrated that editors are not all that necessary if the writer is capable. This is not to say that all blogs are good or of high journalistic standards, but many are, and they are often one person operations. Furthermore, they are fare less censored, which can be just as important as following journalistic rules.
3. Traditional media is quite “Soviet.” It is based on the concept that large groups of people should be interested in the same topics (stock market, football scores). Most importantly, advertisers must be courted, so criticism is greatly muted.

Online Media

1. Many traditional media sites, along with corporate sites, have tried to
   make their online presences as sterile and thought controlled as their
   offline presences. Corporate websites have become so filled with false
   statements and misinformation that they are simply not reliable sources
   for what a company does or how they behave.
2. The current model of internet usage is based upon going to several sites the user is comfortable with and using most often Google to find new content
3. Too much time spent in repetitive searches
4. Many online databases that contain information important to people such as PubMed or the MLS are still far too difficult to search. Furthermore, PubMed is continually lobbied by publishers to pull medical information out of the public domain. The MLS is entirely Realtor controlled and has no regulation or data auditing. These two examples highlight the fact that often online databases have a pretense of following an objective data standard, when in fact they follow only, and publish only, what is in their narrow political interests to publish. We know that difficulty in finding information reduces the standards of evidence. People who can navigate the web tend to have higher standards for evidence than those that watch TV. People who are expert at navigating the web have higher standards of evidence than casual web users

These trends and technological developments lead us to the following conclusion

1. Targeted filtration is the future. The questions is how will this be done. We think feed technologies are a strong possible contender for becoming part of the future solution
2. Does a customized personal website, which is customized to person’s needs (both of personal and for business information) begin to replace the current model? Or on the other hand do a series of personal websites (one for science interests, one for cooking interests, one for work interests) begin to replace the current web searching model?