The search engines might become irrelevant in the world of connected devices where the devices will talk to each other and the information on each device will be validated by the use of other device owners and by devices themselves through a mix of AI and protocols. There should be a separate protocol for devices to talk (not connect) in terms of human language and the AI that translates and rates it should emerge sooner or later. That protocol with the power of NLP and AI will basically put the power of information truly in the hands of crowds, as the compilation and ranking by few sources will become unnecessary. The race for controlling the device and information echo system will become immaterial if the AI becomes inherent in the devices, regulated by protocol and universally accepted signals for supervised learning (not owned by corporations and big information aggregators) that are neutral and publicly validated; a block chain of AI and information.
Age of information overflow started with the rise of internet, and now it has morphed into age of connections. Connecting individuals to the right information, in right context at point of need almost as fast as the thought comes to them about the need, so that it can be fulfilled. Maybe not at the speed of thought but at the speed of their connectivity.
The power of connections is not in the tribes, When one looks for information, it is almost always an individual providing the information.and more experts jump in to create alternate versions and the crowd participates to tune the information by their comments and ultimately declare a winner through vote or simple affirmations. You may call that crowd a tribe, but the same individual will be member of different tribes, where each one can be the leader of different tribe yet member of many.
I use stack overflow quiet a bit, do I know a single expert on it, maybe, but the chances are the experts I remember are far fewer than the information I have acquired through. Even after knowing a few I don't know the extent of the expertise of the contributor, but considered the nod of the crowd worth validating by using the information.
The power of platform as voice of crowd is bigger validation of the expert opinion then the opinion donor. In few cases the expert is able to transcend the crowd by sheer cult of personality in which case the combination of what and who becomes the knowledge and not just the the piece of information. Who imparts the knowledge becomes irrelevant in which forms of information? Is going to MIT more meaningful than taking all MIT courses online? The educational platforms on internet vary in their size of offering and in their value. The same knowledge disseminated by similar means has different value. But eventually that gap will subside when learning will become the true objective and verification of capability will be more quantitative than branded.
The original question how the ease of information dissemination through internet to the seeker is shaping up the future of experts. The seeker is an important part of the puzzle, because I am interested in a knowledge that needs to be disseminated. Is there a difference in how the knowledge is shared by the type of knowledge shared and the audience of that knowledge; professionals seeking professional advice, normal people seeking professional advice. How knowledge is shared through out history and how the hubs of knowledge are formed.
The libraries were the research vehicle for the past. You could walk into one and do your research on existing knowledge base. Now you can perform the same function, many times faster and instead of knowledge being the hub you are the hub. You can research that knowledge, contribute to it with your comments, become a sharing or explaining resource and that very static piece of information all of a sudden is very dynamic. The finding of the knowledge, giving it your voice and then ability to publish that instantly, that is the modern dilemma. It loads the system with redundant information but it also amplifies the information. You can be right or wrong in your editions but that will eventually get through the digestive system of the internet, munched on by the crowd if at all, spewed to the organic pile of information that gets buried in 100 page down in search results and no one will know.
Granularity and segmentation of information by the user and by the type of information that's, internet. The jazz about personalized content, and targeting is nothing more than connecting the right audience, with the precise information, in the least amount of time. To make that happen the original portal, be it web, be it smart device (imagine all smart devices, cars, watches, phones, homes etc) where the quest for a piece of knowledge begins matters. Because the interpretation of the intent of person searching the information is the first step to even attempting to get them the right information right away. Words only tell half the story and rest of the context must come from everything else, sensors and artificial intelligence.
Relevant information was always the quest, and although the content creation is reaching monumental proportions the crowd validation along with machine learning is also breaking new grounds. In current digital realm, few big players dominate the information creation because crowds flock to them but eventually the system(any connected device) will be able to find the most relevant information from any available digital source like a certain recipe stored on a connected personal oven of an unknown chef.
