Agora Media Group Innovation Blog

What if information and intelligence between websites, content and data are becoming more important than the websites, content and data itself?
What if we don’t have to search for content anymore, but throughout filters, information and intelligence comes to us?
What if the starting point is not the static objects itself, but the dynamic patterns between the objects?

Then we have the notion and new point of perspective of the Synaptic Web:

The Internet is constantly evolving. As the speed, flexibility and complexity of connections increase exponentially, the Web is increasingly beginning to resemble a biological analog; the human brain. But what exactly is it that’s makes us, or the Web, smart?

In the brain, neurologists now believe that it is the density and flexibility of the connections between neurons, not simply neurons themselves, which are at the root of intelligence. These connections are called Synapses.

Even if the total number of brain cells, or neurons, begins to diminish in early adulthood, our ability to generate new connections between neurons and between different parts of the brain – what neurologist call “plasticity” – persists throughout life. What’s more, the brain seems to be like any other muscle in that plasticity can be increased with exercise.

It is at the synapse, the “gap” between one neuron and another, where neural connections are consummated to create pathways that, when used, are reinforced with additional connections and, when unused, are “pruned” to make way for new, more useful pathways. It is these incredible chemical bridges that define the patterns of communication that, at any given time, define our cognitive capacity.

The patterns between content are more important than the content itself, this all relates back to the Content versus Context relationship. The Context or patterns between objects do become meaningful as soon as the need is there. A good example given on the site is the following, which fits and builds further on the Social Web:

Social profiles are becoming real-time streams. If the old profile was a neuron, the stream is a neural pathway or pattern. It is the connective tissue between applications and people that feeds information from one node to another. Profiles come and go, people express themselves using countless tools and technologies – the stream, however, is the consistent and persistent channel that matters. It is the new presentation metaphor that increases the level of information we can consume while reducing our sense of overload. Just like synapses, they fire, and like synapses, it is the collective patterns of multiple firings – multiple signals or re-tweets – that creates a pattern. Patterns create meaning. Tune in, tune out, it doesn’t matter. The information will find you if it matters. Implicit information derived from content and gestures is one of the great opportunities of the Synaptic Web. To observe a set of gestures and connect them together creates a dynamic profile of interests, intentions and friends that can be used for discovery and filtering.

Changing the point of view from objects to connections can be applied to numerous examples because it simply diverts the relationship between the two.
There’s always the chance that people will object to terms like these, like there was critique on terms like Web 2.0 or Social Media, though I do find the difference between the Synaptic Web and the Semantic Web an important one in terms of execution and feasibility.

See below the video on the explenation and implications of the Synaptic Web

An interesting notion, which implicates the way we use the Web and how we can enhance the Web is the shift from Search to Filtering.
When we look at the state of our society, being hyperconnective, ubiquitous and real-time, the process of filtering much better adapts this state than search.
Different roles, different and morphing interests/behavior, the flux of information is real, relating this to the information overload which we’re being confronted with because we’re not able to mould the accessible information to the current needs well, is a concrete challenge with massive business opportunities.
Look at the amount of third party Twitter applications, all trying to give clear overviews of information streams, being able to handle them.
Look at Augmented Reality which superimpose meta-data upon the request of the user, needing that particular information by relating location, interest/behavior and available content.
Look at the media convergence which is becoming visible, a new dimension is added which complicates the processing of (streaming) information between devices.
Look at Google Wave, an open collaboration tool which morphs continiously depending on the purpose, being able to be plugged into other systems.

Another notion is by emphasizing the connection instead of the object, reflects the state of fragmented information concerning an entity. This entity might be a company, a person, a topic and so on. Bits of information are scattered throughout the Web, visible on different networks and types of sites, all having different patterns within the networks and between networks, here the information itself is the same, but the context, the patterns between the objects in these networks, define how it can be interpreted.

Having a different point of perspective and look on the Internet is refreshing for both the evolution of the Internet on abstract level and the concrete evolution in terms of applications and needs on the Internet.
What are your thoughts on the Synaptic Web and the flux of information?

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