Meaning, the process of converting Information into Knowledge. To give meaning to information, is to make it useful, to have context, to enable understanding, to empower. Information simply exists, a commodity, dimensionless. When information has meaning it can become knowledge, and that is perhaps the most important process humankind has ever practiced, to learn.

Why is it then that our current most modern Meaning Economy is a text box dictatorship? Why in such an advanced civilization have we become Knowledge Peasants whom are so easily placated by the black magic of our Goovernor? Am I the only one wondering why these commercial boxes own such an important social function: what everything means?

We're safe because it's a free world marketplace on the Net, and anyone can compete if something goes wrong, right? Not quite, 'compete' itself tells you why, the competition will just be another commercial box, how else do you pay for all those servers and bandwidth it takes? I'm glad you asked!

Open open open! Open source, open distributed grids, open algorithms, open rankings, open networks of people cooperating to provide resources. The future of search is in open cooperation (and competition) based on a Meaning Economy, create meaning, exchange meaning, serve meaning.

My vision begins with an open protocol, allowing independent networks of search functions (crawling, indexing, ranking, serving, etc) to peer and interop. All relationships between these networks are always fully transparent and openly published. Networks exchange knowledge between them, each adding new meaning to the information, each of them responsible for the reputations of their participants and peers. This is the very foundation of a Meaning Economy.

Tomorrow now has a meaning that we can all help build.

Doing some blog software updating, new theme, and in the process I wanted to make special note of the now-missing turtle:



The picture was an important depiction of how I used this space, begrudgingly and out of my element. I don't expect that to change, I may blog (a little), but I'm hardly a blogger.

I'm getting indigestion reading all of these complaints about Internet Radio dying. My acid reflux isn't due to the fee hikes, it's the short-sightedness of everyone bitching about them.

Folks, we're ON THE INTERNET here. What happens when a network goes down? You route around it. If the big music licensing conglomerates can't understand the market, route around them. This could be the best thing to ever happen to Internet Radio, and music in general, a new marketplace and new systems will form in the wake of the dying beast(s). A fallen tree may support more life than a living one.

Independent and forward-thinking artists have an enormous opportunity now to get in front of listeners. Online stations have a chance to become next generation leaders, to provide rich new music, and most importantly to engage the listeners with them in their battle to find new sources of content.

Please, people, stand up and do the right thing, MOVE ON.

I think it's the year to shake up the tech world of search a bit. I'm going to be using my free time to contribute what I can to changing the rules.

It's been a deep (and quiet) interest of mine for some time now, I'm looking forward to contributing to building a new open platform :)

I always love the stuff Doc does, and think highly of his VRM initiative. It's something I've always had an interest in, and wondered why with all the technology and disruptive effect of the net, why it feels like this area has gotten notably worse, not better.

The question I ask myself about VRM though is what does the Relationship mean? Many of the situations that have been proposed for VRM to play a role are Vendor (am I the only person to call them VenDUHs in conversations?) selection systems, where you establish a new relationship or transaction. I agree that's important as well, but what I often find more personally frustrating is the after-the-fact relationship. Examples are:
* tracking/shipping and order status
* rewards account status
* support/warrantee options
* transaction history
* upgrades, patches
* relevant product/service announcements

I'd like to manage the relationships I have with my existing Vendors on existing services/products better. I know this is part of Doc's vision as well since I've heard him speak about it, but I don't want VRM to come across as being overly focused on the selection part of the relationship.

One of my pet projects relating to this has been trying to formulate a simple set of customary guidelines for a Venduh to provide a "Secure Feed" for your account. Nothing fancy, just SSL+RSS/Atom and specific to your account. The idea is to simply have a better form of official messaging from a service/product provider to each customer (email is slum, barf). It's been an hour here or there over the last few months, but if there's interest I'll noodle it some more and post something to start that conversation.