Labels are important. They help us classify, define and otherwise make sense of our world. That being said, I got a bit tired of the Web 1.0, 2.0, etc. definintions, even as I realize lines between categories are rarely bright lines. I’m thinking plain ole’ “Information Age” kind of works for me. Maybe it’s just that somewhere between Web 2.0 and 3.0, (maybe it was Web 2.43), I started to get a bit frustrated. As folks struggled to define Web 3.0 and had the further audacity to start thinking Web 4.0, I started thinking; “Enough.” Hence, WebPointX and WorldPointX. When they’re not already taken, domain names are fairly cheap, so what the heck. I figure PointX pretty much covers everything from here on out.

Of Epochs and Patterns

I do understand the compulsion to use divisions in time and label them. (Even if I don’t much care for some aspects of the labeling.) Marking epochs is just something we do as humans. Even if some high falutin’ thought experiments suggest that human perception of time is merely an illusion, we are - among other things - pattern recognizing creatures. In fact, rabidly so. Politically correct suggestions to avoid judging things and others aside, it’s what we do. Everyday. Almost all the time. We percieve, assess, collect, categorize, sift, sort and otherwise define our world in all of the five basic ways things can be organized. Those being, according to basic Information Architecture; Location, Alphabetical, Timeline, Category and Hierarchy. There is a sixth organizing principle of a slightly different sort. Random. And there’s two ways we can look at these six organizing principles; stuff going in and how to get stuff out. (”Random” as an organizing principle is what Search in its varied incarnations is designed to get at. Sometimes, of course, random isn’t entirely random given controlled vocabularies or metadata, but I’m just going by classical defintions here.)

This blog is going to be my attempt to pluck out things of interest. (Yes, my interest of course. Things which impinge on my perception and cry out for some kind of comment.) And to put them in some kind of perspective. Ideally a proper perspective. (Um, from my perspective that is.)

Also, I’ll still digress all over the place. Why? Because I can. Because I really don’t care that much if anyone reads my blog. Because I write about stuff I feel like writing about when someting impinges on my sensibilities to the point where I feel compelled to comment. So goals here are more like guidelines.

Why bother?

A fine question. There’s plenty of drivel out here already. The thing is, just like you, I have various areas of expertise. Some are professional; (product and project management for Internet, etc.), and some are personal hobbies, (flying, SCUBA, volunteer emergency services, etc.). What I’ve found is that others who occasionally speak on such topics sometimes produce content ranging from “Hey, That’s Brilliant and I’d Like to Expand on That Thought,” to “Things With Which I Disagree” and “Things That Are Factually Incorrect.”

Additionally, I like to put things in context. If Mark Twain is right and “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” then maybe sometimes it’s important to look backwards and sideways a bit to make sense of an issue. Too often I don’t see such depth and if at all possible, I’m going to try to do that for things I find needing some clarification.