Order of the Digital World.

     According to David Weinberger, the internet has changed the way we organize our world. Previously, we followed two orders of organization: (1) organizing things themselves and (2) finding what has been organized. How we organize is dictated by traditions. When we encounter something that needs to be organized, tradition commands that labels need to be short and concise. We need to organize in order to give our world purpose and functionality. For example, Binomial nomenclature is the naming of organisms. As the term indicates, only two words can be used to categorize the millions of organisms found on earth. This method could be correct for some and misrepresent others. Weinberger states that “we have to get rid of the idea that there’s a best way of organizing the world.”(10)

     The digital world is beyond the grasp of the laws of organization which rules our physical reality. The third order is what makes the digital world different. It allows things to be organized by bits. “The third order removes the limitations we’ve assumed were inevitable in how we organize information.”(19) Labels in the digital world can be detailed and long, and will not affect the look of the product. Compared to labels in the physical world, which is limited to the dimensions of the paper. The details describing the object can be extensive and therefore become miscellaneous. “[T]he more miscellaneous they are-the better (15).” The miscellaneous aspect of the digital world attempts to cover a wider area and this allows the seeker to find the object faster. Weinberger compares the Bettmann Archive to the Corbis archive. If you were to categorize a picture in the Bettman Archive of “a Massachusetts soldier in the Civil War eating in a field, his rifle by his side” (18), it would be placed under “’Civil War’ and ‘soldier” (18) and neglect all the other details of the photo. In the Corbis archive, the photo can be organized under all those details and their synonyms because it is digital. Miscellaneous opens up many options, sometimes too many in my opinion. If we look at this Bing commercial, it spotlights how much miscellaneous details leads to information overload and steers the searcher away from what they are actually looking for. There is a series of these commercials online poking fun at how it is difficult to find the correct information. Weinberger does state that “there are no centralized classification experts in charge of the new digital world…” (16)

     Towards the end of chapter one, Weinberger declares that the second-order is based on authority, that we need experts to go through information, ideas, and knowledge and put them neatly away.”(22) The power has transferred to the masses. He concludes the chapter with the line “[The miscellaneous order] is changing how we think the world itself is organized and...who we think has the authority to tell us so.”(23) This very democratic and empowering view of the digital world does arise some questions:

Should anybody have power?

These search engines we use are organizing our data, removing the power from our hands, should they be giving this authority?

Should this much power be given to the general masses?

How does a world we cannot physically step into be organized?