Life is a Mystery
photo of the woods

Concentration and diffusion

/ 03 March 2008

Lorcan uses concentration and diffusion to define two distinct Web 2.0 practices. I find the distinction very useful. Of course, this is not an either or; a service can be both concentrated (like Flickr) and open to the spectrum of diffuse tools (like RSS at Flickr). Does this mean that WorldCat is a Web 2.0 concentration of librarian effort well ahead of its time?

It’s also nice for my records that he mentions “the National Library of Australia and the Library of Congress when they chose to use Flickr for significant image projects.”