Re: The Return of Cards?

From: James Weinheimer <weinheimer.jim.l_at_nyob>
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2013 16:56:22 +0200
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
On 10/4/2013 3:04 PM, Richard Wallis wrote:
<snip>
> "Individual pieces of content aggregated together into one experience."
> Isn't that linked data?
>
> No, but UI components such as cards that create the experience can be built
> and connected easier/better if the data underpinning them is linked.
</snip>

As it says in the article, because of the huge growth in APIs and SDKs 
(that is, individual applications working behind the scenes to give a 
specialized kind of access and retrieval and do not have to have 
anything to do with linked data)  "is driving the web away from many 
pages of content linked together... " into what the author claims will 
be a type of a card display. This is because mobile will probably be the 
main wave of the future, so while there is such a great deal of 
information that *can* be aggregated together, there is a corresponding 
loss of screen size, therefore: something has to give. Even the latest 
Google update, Google Hummingbird, which they claim is like replacing 
the engine on a car:
"Panda, Penguin and other updates were changes to parts of the old 
algorithm, but not an entire replacement of the whole. Think of it again 
like an engine. Those things were as if the engine received a new oil 
filter or had an improved pump put in. Hummingbird is a brand new 
engine, though it continues to use some of the same parts of the old, 
like Penguin and Panda." Google claims they changed it to improve 
something they call "Conversational Search". Search Engine Land has a 
good review of Hummingbird. 
http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816

Conversational search is natural language, uses semantic technologies 
and who knows what else but it is obvious that conversational search 
envisions people interoperating with their mobiles by voice. Google 
Glass works only by voice so conversational search has to work for it. I 
must acknowledge that when I try to use the touchpad on my android 
phone, all I do is type mistakes. It is much easier to use the voice 
input, even though it makes me feel like Captain Kirk ordering Scotty to 
beam me up.

I don't care for the idea of "cards" given in that article in "Inside 
Intercom" but the logic seems to be inescapable. Smaller displays can 
only handle so much, just as people can only handle so much. How can the 
library catalog adapt to that?

Will the Next Generation Catalog for Libraries actually be a return to 
the cards? That would just be too ironic!

-- 
James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
First Thus http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
Cooperative Cataloging Rules http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Cataloging Matters Podcasts http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
Received on Fri Oct 04 2013 - 10:57:03 EDT