4. Information in the wild
Think as generally as possible
about publishing: not just print,
not just digital
Information publication and
communication in natural systems
Books as a special case
27. terry/rating 89 books/title The Sound & The Fury
books/author William Faulkner
terry/i-own
books/ISBN 0075536668
terry/read
tim/current-page 224
no owner! barnesandnoble.com/price $18
amazon.com/price $19
alexlines/opinion One of his classics!
28. With an openly writable object for everything
augment personalize
search filter
share organize
31. books/title The Sound & The Fury
terry/rating 9
books/author William Faulkner
terry/i-own
books/ISBN 0075536668
terry/read vintage.com/epub ....
tim/current-page 224
andy/current-page 17
no owner! amazon.com/price $19
barnesandnoble.com/price $18
alexlines/opinion One of his classics!
32. Flui!nfo
An object for everything
Permissions at the level of the tag
Domain names on data
Universal metadata engine
A bit like Wikipedia, but for data
35. Book APIs & Containers
The line between book and
Internet will disappear
Hugh McGuire
http://oreil.ly/hugh-line
Context first
Brian O’Leary
http://j.mp/brian-context
36. Book APIs
“The inevitability of truly connected
books and why publishers need APIs.”
The line between book and Internet will disappear
Hugh McGuire http://oreil.ly/hugh-line
37. Book APIs
“An API is ... what smart web companies
build so that other innovative companies
and developers can build tools and
services on top of their underlying
databases and services.”
The line between book and Internet will disappear
Hugh McGuire http://oreil.ly/hugh-line
38. Book APIs
“We are a long, long way from publishers
thinking of themselves as API providers --
as the API for the books they publish. But
we’ve seen countless times that value
grows when data is opened up (sometimes
selectively) to the world ...
That is where book publishing is going.
Eventually.”
The line between book and Internet will disappear
Hugh McGuire http://oreil.ly/hugh-line
39. Book APIs
“I don’t know exactly what an API for books
would look like, nor do I know exactly what it
means.
I don't know what smart things people will start
to do when books are truly of the Internet.
But I do know that it will happen, and the
‘Future of Publishing’ has something to do with
this. The current world of ebooks is just a
transition to a digitally connected book
publishing ecosystem that won’t look anything
like the book world we live in now.”
The line between book and Internet will disappear
Hugh McGuire http://oreil.ly/hugh-line
40. Context, containers & APIs
“the current workflow hierarchy –
container first, limiting content and
context – is already outdated. To compete
digitally, we must start with context and
preserve its connection to content ...
We must start to open up access, making it
possible for readers to discover and
consume our content within and across
digital realms.”
Context First
Brian O’Leary http://j.mp/brian-context
41. Context, containers & APIs
“In a limited market, our editors became
skilled in making decisions about what
would be published. Now, in an era of
abundance, editors have inherited a new
and fundamentally different role:
figuring out how ‘what is published’ will
be discovered.
To serve that new role, we must reverse
our publishing paradigm. We need to start
with context and develop and maintain rich,
linked, digital content.”
Context First
Brian O’Leary http://j.mp/brian-context
42. Context, containers & APIs
“In a digital realm, true content solutions are
increasingly built with open APIs, something
containers are pretty bad at. APIs provide users
with a roadmap that lets them customize their
content consumption.
Open up your API, I contend, or someone else will.
Many current audiences (and all future ones)
live in an open and accessible environment. They
expect to be able to look under the hood, mix and
match chunks of content and create, seamlessly,
something of their own.”
Context First
Brian O’Leary http://j.mp/brian-context
43. Context, containers & APIs
“Stories like this one ... have led me to see
piracy as the consequence of a bad API. 16
years olds expect access, or they invent it.
The future of content involves giving
readers access to the rules, tools and
opportunities of contextually rich content,
so that they can engage with it on their
own terms.
And whether they say it just like this or
not, readers WANT good APIs.”
Context First
Brian O’Leary http://j.mp/brian-context
44. Context, containers & APIs
“Context can’t be just a preference or an
afterthought any more. Early and deep tagging
is a search reality. In structural terms, our
content fits search conventions, or it will not
be referenced.
And in contextual terms, our content needs to
be deeply and consistently tagged, or it will
face an increasingly tough time being found.
We can’t afford to build context into content
after the fact.”
Context First
Brian O’Leary http://j.mp/brian-context
47. Bullets!
The awkwardness is (ubiquitous) in the
digital world too
The solution is not another application
Instead: openly-writable storage (cf the
natural world & concepts)
Data vs metadata: a dead-end in information
architecture; non-existent in the real world
48.
49. Bullets!
Evolution trumps ontology (in information
architecture)
Asynchronous data protocols
Personalization & customization: should be
in our hands, not on our behalf
Openly writable objects change many things
(e.g. information organization)