Internet Fishing Metaphor

Those of you who have read this blog over time (and especially those of you who read Happenings) will know that I like a metaphor. Actually some article I wrote using the car as a metaphor for IT device form factors is still one of my most popular posts.

Today Phil Windley picked up on Dave Winer’s metaphor for the Internet – fishing. Rather than seeing the internet as a set of places to visit Dave used the phrase:

Now, happily every time one of my contacts puts up a new picture, it shows up in my River of News and gets hooked on my fishing pole.

Phil’s comment was:

Second, the metaphor of “rivers of news” and getting “caught” on Dave’s fishing pole are ones I’ve used before in presentations and articles. I think it describes the reason why RSS is important and why using it is an adjustment for some people. They think of the Web as a collection of places to go visit rather than as streams of information to stand in and enjoy.

I really like this idea of the Internet transitioning from a relatively static reference entity into a dynamic thing that sweeps past you, like a river. The water flowing down the river doesn’t go away. It still exists and can be collected from further down the river if you want to or even from the sea, but that doesn’t stop the river flowing. We can set up nets and collect things from the river. As with fishing I am sure that there will be a great market for people who understand where best to fish.

I no longer see the Internet as a set of places to visit, and didn’t before I saw this metaphor, but the metaphor helps. Why should I go and visit places to see if there is anything interesting to see; why should that be my job; why can’t the information infrastructure tell me that there is something new – the joy of RSS and syndication. I get increasingly frustrated when working with teams of people where they want me to visit a web site or application on a regular basis to see if there has been any update. I came across an application the other day that sent out email updates but put it into the hands of the author to decide whether other people should be told about the update, what a ridiculous idea. I want to decide what I get told about.

All I need now in the Christmas season is some kind of RSS feed from the physical shops telling me that something interesting has come in rather than walking the high street in the full knowledge that what I am looking for doesn’t exist .