Clay Shirky, David Weinberger, and Bruce Sterling Responses

I found Shirky's article really interesting, but naturally I have some concerns as well. I really like Shirky's opening about how we use left-over habits from earlier stages of our communication. It makes a lot of sense because that is what we have known for X number of years. What I'd like to focus on in regards to his article is his theory of our needing to put things on a shelf, and how this should theoretically disappear in a digital world. Realistically, we have no need to choose where something needs to be placed in the digital world, as we should be able to put them in each category that applies. Perhaps I'm naive to think that this should be easy to modify, though, of course, I don't know all that's involved in the world of new media. Finally, I don't really understand why Shirky is so quick to point the finger at Yahoo for categorizing things the way they do. Is it really about "the Yahoo view", or is it just that they are subconsiously organizing a huge system in a familiar and previously trusted way. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Weinberger expands on this topic by discussing the rigid lines of digital organization as unnecessarily strict, which I agree with. Yet his overuse of this tree metaphor is so redundant and heavily hammered into our heads - I get it: trees have limbs, organization has limbs; you don't need to reiterate the theme to this degree. I do, however, like his discussion of search engines as breaking down traditional classification, as well as tagging as collective and participatory. I like the idea of information as a collaborative resource, not as a concrete definition given by a higher authority.

Sterling's discussion of folksonomy as a less imposing means of classification was interesting as well. I like thinking of creating our own lists and responses to search engines as collaborative and democratic. However, I don't particularly understand why he claims that these resources are, "Useless for searching out specific, accurate information." Sure, some of the results that will generate from these resources won't be what your looking for, but often times they are, and as long as you are wise and aware enough to understand that, I think it's possible to be successful in your search.