Information structures ripen #

Information gets modified all the time. 

Think about sharing music. We’ve gone from traveling minstrels, to sheet music, to phonographic cylinders, to records, to 8-track tapes, to cassette tapes, to cds, to downloadable files, to streaming files. Each iteration not only increases the breadth of geography in which music can be shared, but increases the quantity of information available in each form factor and the legibility of the sounds.

Music is information. 

At the same time, we’ve developed new musical instruments. We’ve created novel rhythms and expressions, developed complexity, added music to other information to create richer communications. So while the ability to share information has changed, so has everything about what that medium can do and share and what tools are involved.

The information around music has ripened.

I think this happens to every information endeavor we do, and that it happens in multiple ways. 

• Ideas move towards truthiness
• Data gets less fuzzy, more focused, and more connected
• Tools are developed that refines various aspects of the information
• Meaning becomes more nuanced 
• Meaning can be prioritized
• Tools are developed that allow findability from multiple lenses/bets, metadata, structures, etc.
• Information structures move towards complexity