The Ecology of Longevity

Survival of the fittest as it applies to non-biological phenomena.  Digital longevity using Darwin's theory as the framework.  The "fittest" as it applies to digital objects is determined by info pro's who actively or passively in decided the so call "lifespan" by selections making the life or death of object.

The digital objects are understood using the language of computers who "translates" for lack of a better terminology into visual or audio formats for human consumption. This computer and software which characteristic will version 1.0 pass to 2.0. or properties will survive or data survive. We as human have traits just as the digital hardware and software such as, MS Office interconnected of their various products on this platform and how some "traits" from MS Office 2007 are inherited into MS Office 2013.  What does this mechanical process imitation of a biological phenomena mean for digital hand me downs? View the digital formats as a living organism that evolves but requires us to create preservation tools that outlive and become evolutionary in application.

As we look at our system think about open source is represented and how this process has basically evolved on various paths by creator, users and how characteristics are directly inherited. Also, many technically advancement mimic organic evolution by (1)creating different designs and (2) existing designed are optimized for competition.

This article posit that an evolution process exist within technology and the strongest applications survive.  The ones who make it determine the future just like the victor writes history and gets the spoils which are "econosphere" of consumers and longevity among  formats.

What determines quality of search results?

Ok...so define quality...got you very difficult and that's how this story starts...and what really does influences the quality.  What comparisons can be made among search engines? the author of this blog discusses factors or influence that affect quality.

• Quality of relevance ranking from the underlying search engine-
• replicating bad input basically
• what sources are searched causes difficulty for compare model
• problem may exist in publisher's search engine not federated search product
• The number of results retrieved from the underlying search engine by the federated search engine
• More sources the better when measured against relevancy
• Two ways for more search results
• ask for more results than default
• come back to the source after result
• Quality of federated search engine connectors (connectors search the database)
• Quality of connector for delivery of relevant
• Quality confirmed by doing multiple searches against the federated search engine on one source then same search at publisher's site
• Smart connector=better results
• Quality of ranking of the federated search engine
• Use of ranking of underlying sources presents two problems
• many sources rank poorly
• federated engines need to merge relevance across multiple sources
• Let's not forget algorithm used to possibly judge quality
• Results organization and presentation
• Let's be honest needs to look good and be organized=more time spent with search product

Finally, I hope this gives you ways to question venders and the products available.

Metadata Analytics:Scene-level television metadata:Tagging TV - Is the new oil in the industry by Richard Kastelein

  This article provides an example of Electronic Programme Guides [EPG] i.e. TV metadata which is snippets of information and images. Use of Gracenotes that can be used for descriptive info, images and multimedia on one show as a whole.

We have all watched a show and been given the option to see more which is done by TV tagging. Example on CNN they ask a viewer if they want interactive TV. We all know what tagging means basically.  The TV metadata is a tagging process, but is bi-directional and provides IP metrics.  But, some value has been identified thus the process is not easy and has no common standards ...again!!!Common Standards. 

The article does set a pathway to working out an solution. First automation of tagging because we would need too many geeks to do it manually. This part has some headway with Speech to Text technology additionally use of Closed Caption when available. But, the best way as suggested is meshing of both ways "moderated/curated by humans."  Some attempts at XML standards for EPG metadata have started to make headway..Common Standards!!!!...Many of the standards are built on some significant predecessors from mostly the European digitalisation of TV. Soon the finalization of DVB-SI.  Second is MPEG-7 which provides a broader ability to provide tools for description of all types of multimedia content from a broadest range of networks and terminals.

The funding of projects to demonstrate how Semantic Web tech can connect TV content and Web convergence with a focus on BMF 2.0(Broadcast Metadata Exchange Format). Basically this format allows metadata interoperability  within their platform of noTube which is pushing that standard.  We will have to wait and see where this tension of using a pushed standard through a platform will effect European tv and internet connectivity.

Bibliographer identifiers:OpenIDs,researchers and delegation

The article continues the discussion of identifiers and moves forward with acknowledging the possibility of benefiting the scholarly communication channel. Previous post of my blog was about persistent ids.  Same problem, unified agreed upon language for lack of better terminology on my part. Stated "We need a single, unique way of identifying researchers."

OpenID provides that ideal of "persistent" that would be a plus to the context of scholarly process.  The process of delegation of the technical portion is a difficult assessment of lesser of two evils of organizations' longevity  versus control i.e. trust.The suggestion of domain control sounds viable for guaranteed futurama.  The delegation piece is very important from my standpoint and the ability to maintain control for future changes. These ongoing conversations expose the tensions that exist among info pros.