“Take the record album. Everything about it is technologically pre-determined. The technology of the LP demanded artwork to differentiate one package from the next. The length was set by the groove density of the pressing plants and playback apparatus. The dynamic range likewise. These factors gave us the idea of the 40-to-60-minute package, split into two acts, with accompanying artwork. Musicians were encouraged to create works that would be enjoyed as a unitary whole for a protracted period—think of Dark Side of the Moon, or Sgt. Pepper’s.”

In general he was talking about people claiming to not like reading on screens; making the point that we all read on screens these days. ((At least if you’re reading this, you are!)) What we don’t like is a long format on screens. I’ve made the argument for a time that our eyes are simply not evolutionarily used to staring at the sun. Paper is a reflective medium, screens are emissive. This means that the light is more unidirectional like a light bulb, then scattered randomly like most (unpowered) surfaces. ((I’ve not seen or found the human factors study, but I am convinced that looking at a screen causes more eye strain than paper)) That’s mainly why I think the form factors of most art (for all media) will shift to smaller bite size bits until screen media becomes reflective again.

The Economist article talks a lot about measuring and managing the data, but as Google has shown us all, it’s real value lies in merging all the data. In this sense, quantifying information really has little to do with each piece of information’s “truth-value” — and much more to do with the density of information around some particular fact. There is A LOT of empirical evidence (i.e. information) regarding gravity and that’s one fact people really don’t call into question too much, isn’t it? In this sense, all of the information regarding gravity “piles on” and gets us closer to the truth. And even though there might be articles out there on the web about anti-gravity they would largely get filtered out of a theoretical truth system by all the information about gravity.

Quantifying information and working out its value is going to be one of the great challenges of the next few decades. It even matters financially. Whatever Google’s valuation is, if their databases were to, God forbid, vanish one day, how much would they be worth the next day? Where is this valuation in their financial statements? Nicholas Negroponte had it right back in 1995 when he said that people don’t properly value bits. In his anecdote he talks about a security guard that is somewhat chagrined when Mr. Negroponte tells the guard that his laptop is worth $2 million. And yet, by all rights, Negroponte was totally right because his laptop had his writings, published papers, etc. Think about it: is your laptop really only worth somewhat less than the sticker price? What about all those mp3s? What about all those emails? Do you think you could get an insurance company to refund you that data if you lost it? I don’t either and we should figure out why that is.