This week in links - week 11, 2008
It seems to me IDC may have missed (or at least skimmed over) some important conclusions in its newly released 2008 update of last year's widely cited The Expanding Digital Universe, which tries to outline the dimensions of the ongoing explosion of digital information. Not surprisingly, the 2008 update finds that the 2007 estimate of the world's information content was too small. It turns out the 2007 digital universe was actually 281 billion gigabytes, about 10 percent bigger than IDC thought.
By 2011, IDC says in its new report, the digital universe will grow to 10 times its 2006 size. I suspect that when 2011 rolls around, this estimate will prove an underestimation as well.It seems there are two fundamental Laws of Information at work here:
- Information is vastly easier to create than to store
- Information is vastly easier to store than to dispose of
I believe we have to tackle this in two ways: Obviously, we need to make it easier to get rid of content. But we must also learn to accept that we cannot get rid of all content which is no longer needed. We have to accept that it is there, but use smart technologies to filter out irrelevant content.
By the way, you can now download AIIM President John Mancini's Keynote from the 2008 AIIM International Exposition and Conference. It is free for download if you register as an AIIM member, which is free of charge (unless you choose Professional membership).
And here's a podcast with Carl Frappaolo, AIIM Vice President, Market Intelligence, who reveals the results of its’ exclusive survey (sponsored by EMC) on content management. From the summary:
"While 99 percent of respondents admitted that unstructured information played a significant role in driving their business processes, most identified major challenges if unstructured information was not readily available as part of those processes""Open Networks, Open Platforms Seen As Mobile Industry's Future" by Richard Martin, InformationWeek:
"As the FCC's auction of valuable spectrum in the 700 MHz range winds down, the mobile and wireless industry is entering a new era of open networks and open software platforms -- regardless of the outcome of the bidding in the auction.
'Finally, the Internet is going mobile,' said Jonathan Christensen, general manager for audio and video at Skype. With the open-access provisions attached to the 700 MHz auction, the advent of open platforms such as the Android operating system from Google (NSDQ: GOOG), and the success of VoIP applications like Skype (which now has 276 million registered users), 'a new game begins,' added Christensen.
This new game is marked not only by efforts by large established players like Google and Verizon Wireless...//...but startups like OpenMoko, which is backed by First International Computer and has developed a fully open-source, Linux-based software platform for mobile computing devices."