In traditional media such as novels, the writer controls the events in the story. Similarly, we as the users organize and categorize our own data according to our preferences. According to the user, the way in which they categorize their data such as tagging photos or adding captions may form a narrative. However, tagging may not be the useful way to categorize data for other users because what one may consider funny, may not be funny for another person. Metadata is data about data that is used to organize the constantly growing amount of data.
I personally love to use databases such as Google and Bing to search for information that I find interesting or know little of. I am quite impressed at the speed I can access data on the web and how just by typing a few letters of the word or phrase I am searching, some suggestions pop up for me to speed up the searching process as if a search engine is not already fast enough. Today, the use of databases is an important tool for users of both old and new media.
Good analysis. I, too, use search engines such as Google, like a lot of people, to find out information about things we know little about. Although the narrative structure is important, I think that the invention of databases has contributed to making our daily lives much easier. It seems like years ago the narrative structure was a bigger deal, but these days I think people just want information, and they want it fast.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. Now-a-days we are able to access information at what seems like lightning speed. It really is amazing how a person can simply type in a few letters of a word into a search engine such as Google and the entire word or perhaps a suggested phrase appears. All that point, all the person needs to do is scroll down and choose what he/she is searching for. It truly is unreal.
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