All the Information in the World

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I sometimes think that one of the most fundamental issues that content producers (of any kind) consistently fail to get their heads around is just what they are competing against in the new world.

 

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How much information can the world store, communicate, and compute? from SCVideos on Vimeo.

As Kevin Kelly said all the way back in 2006, the amount of information we are generating is the fastest increasing quantity on this planet, expanding and accumulating faster than any material or artifact in this world, and anything else we create or can measure: “That means that at the very edge of change, where change changes the most, information is leading.”

A study by Martin Hilbert of the University of Southern California pegs the annual growth of general purpose computing capacity at 58%, the annual growth in telecommunication capacity at 28%, and the annual increase in globally stored information at 23%. In 2007, humankind was able to store 275 Exabytes of compressed information in our technological devices, equivalent to 80 times more information per person than was in the historic Library of Alexandria. Whilst broadcasting capacity has grown at about the same rate as the world’s GDP, our information storage capacity has grown four times faster, and computation capacity 9 times faster.

The point is that unless you have a grasp of the way in which ideas propagate and involve in this new environment, distributing content could well feel like you’re dripping water into a raging torrent. And it’s why share of voice is rapidly becoming such a defunct concept.

For a larger version of the above image take a look here. And a HT to Kevin Kelly.

Original Post: http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2011/03/all-the-information-in-the-world.html