David Warlick writing brilliantly on social software and information:
The rise of blogging, podcasting (and vodcasting), wikis, and the glue that ties them and much else together, RSS, more closely align with the video game view of information than the blook-reading and film-watching mode that is my information consumption and was the central part of my education. The information landscape is increasingly a place that we participate in, observing our experience, reflecting on what we observe, reporting it to the blogosphere, reading, reflecting, and writing some more, and constructing uniquely valuable content — along with the junk. Information flows through new channels and on new levels and it is tied together through tags and folksonomies, remixed, and attracted back to us in new and educationally potent ways.
Today, as information becomes increasingly networked, digital, and overwheming,
Content rises increasingly out of conversation rather than formal and procedural publishing,
The behavior of content depends more and more on the behavior of its readers, and
People are increasingly connecting to each other through their content — through their ideas
The same holds true for libraries. For the profession and our institutions to move forward we must be very aware of the power of these new connections, conversations and opportunities to collaborate. Librarians have the skills to understand the new channels of information but they must also embrace and understand the new methods of delivery and content creation. Such technologies as RSS and whatever syndication method comes next will surely shape the way folk, from all walks of life, all professions, everywhere, will get their streams od information, entertainment and content.