We spend most of our time online searching for information. This is not surprising, since the Web is a vast sea of information, where finding exactly what you are looking for is not easy. But why is it that when we find something on one site it is still not easy to find it on another? Say you found a Harry Potter book on Barnes and Noble, why is it still hard to find the same item on other sites like Amazon and Powells? Why is search a one time deal?We are used to a Web where each site has its own copy of the information. Each web site is a silo. But that does not need to be the case. If web sites agree on how to represent things like books, music, movies, travel destinations and gadgets, then we would spend a lot less time searching. Imagine that the URL for the Harry Potter Goblet of Fire book is this:
http://www.amazon.com/books/j-k-rowling/harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire
In other words, if there was a standard way to turn things into URLs, then finding information would be a lot easier. More here…
