Off the top of your head, which company is the most central to how most people use the ‘Net? I’d bet that your answer is Google. So, what is it that Google offers that is unique? Simple, access to the greatest public data collection ever created that is also the most current. But what Google doesn’t do is provide information. This means that if you want to find out the current gas prices in Ventura then Google’s the tool for the job. But what if you want to find out about gas pricing then Wikipedia will give you a more in-depth and focused answer. This is an important distinction …
The reason it is important is that it is the difference between finding data and finding information. As the Web grows bigger and bigger the popularity of a site as determined by Google’s Pagerank algorithm will become less useful in finding “durable” specific information (for example, analysis and history) but incredibly useful for current data. This means that the likes of Wikipedia will become the focus of gathering information but doesn’t mean that either will be the dominant Internet reference — people need both but while data can be monetized doing the same with information would be very dangerous. Churchill quipped that “History is written by the victors
