jamesf99 Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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mpmendenhall wrote:
"Files, and the ability to control them" will still be around for a while at the underlying level and accessible to anyone who cares about working with them. However, the way that a typical user will see/interact with them is likely to change.
Organizing and navigating by strict hierarchical trees of nested folders is on its way out --- the mental picture of a file having one specific "location" will be replaced by searching/matching files tagged with keywords. Instead of navigating to "~/Documents/Photos/Animals/Cats/IMG_1234.jpg," users will type "cat photo" in a navigation box to find matching results. This matches the type of search interaction users are used to for web browsing, and also allows the same document to be more flexibly categorized --- you might be able to find it not just by "cat photo" but also under "last christmas vacation" and "aunt sally's pets." The transition to this way of organizing files is already well under way; most users don't deal with manually defined folder hierarchies to organize their music/movies/photos/etc., but rely on catalog management programs (like iTunes, iPhoto in Apple's case) to locate files by a variety of search methods.
Another change is removing the association between a file and a specific piece of storage hardware. Users are mostly not going to worry where a file is physically located --- whether on a hard drive in their device, on some home network storage, or sitting on some remote server farm and sent over the network when accessed. Most data is likely to be automatically distributed and backed up, with pieces in motion between many locations without user intervention....Show more →
I agree. Data architecture has been changing for quite a while, both conceptually and physically. I did a lot of work with large publishers on taxonomies, ontologies, keywording, and tangentially, the preliminary cloud storage concept for them, so I have a passing acquaintance with the new structures and direction.
Just as with the "paperless office" of the past, files - the tangible and discrete unit of all consumer data - will be here.. No doubt about it..
Companies such as apple may make it harder for people to use them, but Win8 (if successful) brings back native control to mobile devices, it's going to make iOS look pretty bad. Will it be "game over"? Possibly, but we'll have to wait and see...
on a digression.. iTunes.. Ugg.. has there ever been a worse piece of garbage software written? That's OK, I know the answer, and it's yes, one.. Adobe's LR v 1.0.. real garbage, but back OT, the sooner iTunes is put to an ignominious and public death, the better. It's a horrible piece of.....uhh, "software"......
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