Page 19 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

leveraging the know-how and experience of mul- tiple subject-matter experts, these new search engines will be orders of magnitude better than Google at nding relevant information in speci c knowledge areas.Early examples of this are Nomadlist, who collects, vets and curates best cities and places to live around the world for digital nomads, Ol- dversion which not only collects and organizes, but also physically preserves all of the released versions of free software tools (making it a snap to nd and switch back to any past versions of Skype or iTunes).Both of these are not just evolved vertical search engines with many custom, dedicated lters,but they also act as full-blown directories where each result brings in or aggregates a plethora of relevant complementary info. Nothing like what Google o ers.What is being done to preserve curated content for the long-term future? Unfortunately, very little or nothing is being done on this front. Though there are speci c initiatives and organizations devoted to this.The same vertical search approach is also the one used for example by Stylig and Stylight (fashion, clothes, shoes and accessories) which facilitate discovery across brands by curating and bringing together in one place the newest and most interesting fashion products available online.In the near future, it may also be possible that individuals will be able to tweak and customize search algorithms themselves, choosing and applying their preferred lters, sources and ratings, while collaboratively curating and anno- tating highly focussed search results instead of relying exclusively on Google proprietary, secret ones. Zakta Research is an early example in this direction.Cultural Heritage and PreservationAlthough there is widespread agreement that the loss of the Library of Alexandria marked a very dark moment for the cultural heritage of this planet, we do not seem much concerned today about the fact (and not simply the prob- ability) that a very signi cant part of our digital content will be forever lost in a few years from now.Consider this for example: An estimated 44 percent of Web sites that existed in 1998 vanished without a trace within just one year (WashingtonPost).Given all the good things that our culture derives from curating content, and the awareness ofthe imsiness of digital content and the ease with which it can get lost, what is being doneto preserve curated content for the long-term future?Unfortunately, very little or nothing is being done on this front. Though there are speci c initiatives and organizations devoted to this, like national libraries such as the British Library, the U.S. Library of Congress and the Internet Archive, they are yet very distant from having the resources and technology to be able to preserve all that is relevant.And one key reason why they are not yet capable of preserving all that is of relevance is that there is no one suggesting where the good stu is.As a matter of fact, while we take for granted that anything saved or published online is there to stay forever, we have ample proof that this is not the case at all, and that we gradually lose a great chunk of the information artefacts we create, publish and share online.In a recent study looking at academic references, Zittrain, et al. (2013) discovered that overAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 201719Smart culture. Analysis of digital trends