There is no question that the Web has become an integral part of modern life for people around the world, connecting us to each other and to seemingly infinite portals of information in real time. In the era of Web 2.0, barriers to participation have been lowered further and further, and we’ve seen the birth of myriad new people to connect, learn, share, and collaborate. From blogs to social networks, people are enjoying an increasingly rich online life.
And while the Web has dramatically enriched our lives, we have only just scratched the surface of its potential. Through the rapid expansion and enhancement of the information to which we have access, we’ve also lost a great deal of freedom and flexibility over it; although most people may not have noticed this yet, as “newer” is often perceived as “better.”
Many of the basic abilities we have when consuming and sharing information in the physical world have yet to make the jump to the digital realm. Most Web sites do not yet provide us the ability to integrate our own personal context into the presentation of information and the tools uniquely available to each of us. For instance, before the Web, planning a holiday trip often involved clipping articles and pictures from magazines, collecting brochures, taking tips and hints from friends, writing down details from travel agents, highlighting ratings and reviews of restaurants and hotels from travel books that we’ve bought or borrowed, noting suggestions on the best seats on an airplane from coworkers, and assembling all this information in one place, often the kitchen table, to finalize travel plans and itinerary.