We are all librarians now. I’ll back that statement up over the course of this article, but if you’re already picturing a stern, bespectacled figure who might shush you at any moment, think again. Today, our lives represent a fusion of roles hitherto segregated to a minor piece of society- the author, the producer, the librarian. The libraries I’m talking about are networks of content on the web, and they’re run by ordinary users just like you and me. We create the content, using all kinds of simple yet powerful tools, with a prolificacy unheard of ever before. With those same tools, we can immediately package our content for distribution. And any content we find valuable—whether our own or someone else’s—we make sure to quickly share with others. Like librarians, we guide the reading of our contacts, and they perform the same function for us. We are personally doing the creating, the organizing, and the connecting- and this changes how the content is found and received.
In past articles, I’ve focused on creative strategies and helpful tools to enable you to plan effectively and execute professionally on the web. But I haven’t taken a close look at how we as users organize all this content and connect other users to it. This effort is much bigger than individual applications and has become such a natural part of our daily lives that it just hasn’t stood out much. But it is now clear that the way we organize online is having a profound effect upon the world of search.
Search has changed significantly, and just as we adapted to the algorithmic approach of search engines, we must also adapt to today’s crowded social environment. This month, I’d like to look at the ways that our use of social tools affects how we connect with content, and the practical ways we can apply this knowledge to improve websites.
