The arrival of the Internet as a public medium in the mid-1990s forever changed how we access and communicate information. The quantity of available information will continue to increase, at an ever-increasing rate thanks to new tools like blogs and wikis that make authors and publishers of us all…
…but quantity does not necessarily share a relationship with quality. Or with consistency for that matter. The popular target to criticise and blame for the missing relationship is the amateur world of Web 2.0 tools and sites. Well, the so-called professionals are a long way from blameless too.
Take a simple example. Here in the central region of the UK, it has rained most days since the beginning of May. There’s a truth behind the old quote ‘make hay while the sun shines’ – ideally, you need 5 dry days to cut, turn, bale and bring in hay from the field. Having just checked the weather forecast to try and guess when we can get our hayfield cut (now that it is finally dry enough to get the machinery on it), the UK Met Office claims it will rain on Monday, whilst the BBC Weather (using a data stream from the Met Office) claims it will be sunny. Great.
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