Thursday, September 09, 2004
The nature of meaning in the age of Google. Google, Indexing, Web, Meaning
The nature of meaning in the age of Google. Google, Indexing, Web, Meaning
"Abstract
The culture of lay indexing has been created by the aggregation strategy employed by Web search engines such as Google. Meaning is constructed in this culture by harvesting semantic content from Web pages and using hyperlinks as a plebiscite for the most important Web pages. The characteristic tension of the culture of lay indexing is between genuine information and spam. Google's success requires maintaining the secrecy of its parsing algorithm despite the efforts of Web authors to gain advantage over the Googlebot. Legacy methods of asserting meaning such as the META keywords tag and Dublin Core are inappropriate in the lawless meaning space of the open Web. A writing guide is urged as a necessary aid for Web authors who must balance enhancing expression versus the use of technologies that limit the aggregation of their work."
But especially important, consider this quote, "Google's continued success depends on its ability to collect unaffected Web content, which means that it must avoid the single individual's assertion of meaning. This strategy implies that any metadata scheme for the Web that promotes the meaning assertion of a single Web author (i.e., My Web page means this) will be avoided by aggregators. The strategy of aggregation, the enlistment of Web authors as lay indexers, and the temptation of bad faith points to the importance of maintaining the ignorance of lay indexers."
This makes Google the worst enemy of the Semantic Web. It implies that Google's success depends on ignoring the metadata added by web authors to their own pages.
"Abstract
The culture of lay indexing has been created by the aggregation strategy employed by Web search engines such as Google. Meaning is constructed in this culture by harvesting semantic content from Web pages and using hyperlinks as a plebiscite for the most important Web pages. The characteristic tension of the culture of lay indexing is between genuine information and spam. Google's success requires maintaining the secrecy of its parsing algorithm despite the efforts of Web authors to gain advantage over the Googlebot. Legacy methods of asserting meaning such as the META keywords tag and Dublin Core are inappropriate in the lawless meaning space of the open Web. A writing guide is urged as a necessary aid for Web authors who must balance enhancing expression versus the use of technologies that limit the aggregation of their work."
But especially important, consider this quote, "Google's continued success depends on its ability to collect unaffected Web content, which means that it must avoid the single individual's assertion of meaning. This strategy implies that any metadata scheme for the Web that promotes the meaning assertion of a single Web author (i.e., My Web page means this) will be avoided by aggregators. The strategy of aggregation, the enlistment of Web authors as lay indexers, and the temptation of bad faith points to the importance of maintaining the ignorance of lay indexers."
This makes Google the worst enemy of the Semantic Web. It implies that Google's success depends on ignoring the metadata added by web authors to their own pages.
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