Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
For a long time—and especially around 1994, when the World Wide Web
was just getting its jumpstart—the Internet appeared to many as a vast pool
of information just sitting in cyberspace. People who used the Internet for
research “cast their nets” by entering queries into a search engine, and then
pulled in “ish,” in the form of information. Once they had the information
they needed, they didn't bother to repeat the search, unless enough time
lapsed and the information changed.
Nowadays the Internet is in a constant state of lux. No longer a static reposi-
tory of information, Web content changes minute by minute. From bloggers
posting their thoughts online and news sources adding timely stories, to
Flickr users showing of their latest photographs and the explosion of online
video and podcasts, information is being added at a breathtaking rate.
his continuous low of information provides an opportunity to not only
conduct Web searches of relatively constant information, such as a phone
number or the capital of Idaho, but to continuously monitor live informa-
tion, such as the expansion of area codes or the population growth of Idaho
over time, to stay abreast of topics that are of interest.
his idea of using ongoing information “trapping”—constant information
gathering that's as automated as possible—instead of relying only on static,
single instances of Web searching is what this topic is all about. And as
you'll discover, many tools are available for trapping information.
The Beneits of Information Trapping
Picture this: You get up in the morning and go to your oice. You're in the
middle of a project on online retail sales. Before information trapping was
a reality, you would spend some time visiting various specialty magazines
and conducting online news searches, looking for more retail statistics. With
information trapping, you initially set up information-gathering traps for
information and statistics about online retail sales, and then each morning
you simply open your RSS feed reader and/or e-mail application, sit back, and
read through the information your traps have found. You can save and orga-
nize whatever data you want. As you move on to the other work you need to
accomplish, your information traps are busily scanning the Internet to pro-
vide you updated information the next time you do your research.
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