• by Diane Mermigas , March 4, 2008

Contrary to popular belief, the biggest challenge in digital media is not producing or aggregating content and advertising. It is providing adequate frameworks to manage the deluge of interactive content and advertising--making a more efficient, lucrative experience for all concerned.

It is a gargantuan task that will be achieved over time.

The emphasis now is on making endless connections, and less on what happens after the fact. The flood of interactive content and data, even at this early juncture, is enough to drive anyone crazy. Even searches facilitated by Google are largely inefficient and incomplete, as are many of the Web destinations they take consumers. Affinity groups are sprinkled more with raw opinion and personal obsessing than useful or enlightened information. There are more sites related to our interests than there are hours in the day to discover them.

Finding what is most relevant, as well as immediately useful on the Internet, can be a futile proposition. So it is critical to properly store pertinent information so it can be easily found. That's a value proposition--creating the ultimate playlists of specific online content--that is a long way from being fulfilled.

Peter Morville is among the many experts who writes about the information architecture that will achieve data and content management nirvana in a digital world. The leading concept Morville calls "findability" is the ability to locate or navigate. But managing "found" data and content in a functional, efficient manner that can be continuously retrieved isn't simple. We have all been part of the Internet Age long enough to appreciate how amazing and overwhelming the torrent of information is. And that dilemma is the kiss of death for all players, because--as Morville puts it--"you can't use what you can't find."

Finding content in some far-flung corner of cyberspace is no longer enough. The ongoing use of relevant, actionable information and content has value that stretches beyond the initial marketing ploy. Still, so much attention is being given to monetizing search that the marketplace has barely moved into the mechanics of managing what is found. Widgets, RSS feeds, tagging and other tools do little to help users extract, organize, store and retrieve their most salient material. There are few management tools available to save users from drowning in a sea of emails, links, Web sites, networks and blogs.

Although more than 40% of younger Internet users customize their news and other information pages, the amount of data accumulating at each touchpoint is staggering. One-quarter to one-third of younger users receive RSS feeds. Forty-six percent read Internet blogs, 32% tag online content and 14% download podcasts, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The complex and critical matter of bringing more relevant order to the Web is beginning to capture attention. A recent Churchill Club panel concluded that the trust developed through the management of information across disparate Web places--from instant messaging to social networks--may prove more valuable to user relationships over time than winning over customers with the most effective interactive marketing techniques.

Marketers are lusting for every kind of consumer personal data to support their Web endeavors. As The New York Times points out, Yahoo's collection of 110 billion pieces of data about the 136 million users visiting its site is pivotal to matching niche marketers with targeted consumers to yield a windfall of online revenues. Buying Yahoo would allow Microsoft to increase the number of times it could collect data on a typical consumer by 674%--to 2,747 times a month from 355, according to comScore. News Corp.'s MySpace already picks up data on an average user 1,416 times a month.

If that same energy could be applied to consumers' need to better manage and organize their online stuff, it could have a surprisingly similar impact. That's not happening yet. But it's part of a Semantic Web approach for companies to extend and relate material being led by Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and now director of the W3 Consortium, which recently opened the platform to outside developers to build their own applications.

In fact, individual Web users are in need of a similarly keen content management and organization structure. If individuals can find, organize, manage, retrieve and continue to use relevant Web information, they will become more attached to everything about it, including the marketing of related goods and services and links to other content.

Until now, data and content management has been applied more to businesses than individuals. But the time is close at hand when Internet users--a majority of U.S. adults and teens--are going to let out a gut-wrenching yelp in a plea for better management of the Web. It is a major business void waiting to be filled.