Everything Is Miscellaneous

Getting Reorganized

The dawning of the digital age fundamentally changed the way people organize everything from how information is stored and categorized to how shopping works. Physical space is the prime consideration when librarians decide which books to keep, but Internet site operators face no such constraints. The Internet enables the presentation of information based on individual preferences, such as buying habits, and provides the ability to browse Web pages in miscellaneous order. Similarly, new Internet-based principles now guide the organization of content in random groupings to make it more searchable.

Finding information is the common quest of modern hunter-gatherers, but the search no longer has to take place solely in the physical world. Today, physical reality is ebbing in importance as ethereal information defines the Internet age.

Traditionally, people would go into stores and find items according to how the stores’ managers organized their inventory. Shoppers who were not looking for anything special could browse the shelves until they found something of interest. The joy of browsing is an act of discovery. In a similar way, the digital world...