MsPixel

It's the same Internet...just better

A decade ago we looked to the internet to solve communication and social networking problems. With Facebook and Linkedin we have our own personal databases composed of our friends, family members and colleagues. I’d argue that the problem has been over solved. I have over 700 friends on Facebook. As the friend list grows I grow more cautious of what I’m saying in my status updates. I’d go into this a bit more but that’s a big long post for another day.

There’s a NEW shiny problem we’ll encounter as we begin to realize the limits of Google’s ability to scale. Searching for things on the web is becoming increasingly difficult. Sometimes you don’t find what you’re looking for after the 2nd or 3rd Google search. As the internet grows (just think that ever user’s tweet creates a new webpage that can live forever) data becomes harder to find. So here’s the new problem:

Problem: We’re entering an age of trillions and trillions of webpages. Google can’t scale to crawl all of those pages.

Solution: Teach computers how to understand, sort and link data.

Caveat: That’s easier said then done. Several start up companies are striving toward the ideal of building a semantic web. They have yet to succeed but a committed and loyal group of people continue to discuss and collaborate create a smarter more intelligent way of organizing data on the internet.

I’ve had ideas of a “semantic web” knocking around my head for about two years. I even had a short stint as a semantic start-up in New York. This video got me thinking about the possibilities of an intelligently linked internet today. Watch it and let me know what you think.

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