Saturday, February 19, 2011

Impacts of Info Ecologies on Info Architectures

Changes to information ecologies would naturally have an impact on information architectures, because the system and parts are connected.  Changes to the system impact how the information is presented, just as changes to how the information is present impact the system.  And who is able to contribute to the system and create understanding also changes how everything is organized.  Different people are able to provide different information, data, knowledge, and wisdom, for everyone has different experiences.  Wisdom is especially diverse depending on who is contributing, since it comes from within, and thus is different for everyone.  The types of information, data, knowledge, and wisdom determine how everything is organized.  For example, in Wikitravel, if no one contributed information about restaurants, it would not be necessary to have an "eat" section.  Since many people now rely on websites to gather information, data, etc., having many people from different backgrounds being able to contribute provides a greater chance of being able to find the information or data a person is looking for.


Electronically mediated writing environments like Wikitravel provide people with a greater amount of different information from many different sources which would otherwise not be as easily found in one place.  Therefore online writing, by making more information available and more easily accessed, and through organizing it in different ways, make it possible for people to understand information faster and more easily.  It also makes it easier for people of many different areas to collaborate, thereby making changes in the contexts outside of online easier.

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