On Shifts and Information Distribution

With a hat tip to Zenpundit and Critt Jarvis.

What I find interesting about the shift is how most of the tools driving this space online are still relatively immature. I say that because it takes programming most folks still can't do and reporting services rarely found even at a cost for content producers to truly understand their audience, and target them both efficiently and directly. I am not talking about distribution, broad distribution is easy, but direct delivery is getting more difficult. I believe the next phase of the current evolution in Web 2.0 will be for content to include security on demand, the ability to easily negotiate with security filters safely while retaining security quality at the consumer level for the purposes of insuring that relevant information is available on demand. Currently, that is not the case, broad brushes paint over social software networks, so often productive content is blocked when disruptive content is targeted.

Consumer distribution of social software content will become viral as technologies mature, probably when RDF arrives in the mainstream. If the security foundation of distribution isn't addressed sufficiently before that time, the global firewalls of the global business community will become the new form of global information censorship. The way many businesses operate content filters today - sometimes absent a full understanding of the shift already in motion and often unaware of protocol options (not to mention the built in limitations of filtering software itself) - promotes a trend of censorship in data distribution that only creates greater challenges in IT shops to balance access with security while insuring business productivity.

Human behavior drives information flows. In the US, if content isn't available on Kindle (this one is - for free btw), accessible via mobile phones, or isn't optimized for the tools most utilized by the mobile information consumer then the information isn't competitive in distribution.

I've been thinking about information distribution in the context of a ships crew, in particular I began thinking about it when I was on USS Freedom (LCS 1) last November. I've been wondering if we are approaching a point where mobile communications of every individual chief and officer within a ship - not just on-demand vocal communications but also data communications to mobile devices - becomes necessary in order to support the Navy's desire to reduce crew sizes in order to maximize efficiency and response.