If you are at home searching for a restaurant, for example, you can get all the restaurants in the area. If you are walking around downtown and search using your PDA, you could get only those results with a 2 square block walking area. So really, those results are better for you.

But what happens when we become so on demand that it isn't enough? Will there be a point at some time in the near future where there is true information overload?

Right now, if you are watching TV, and depending on what you are watching it on (a regular TV or a web enhanced TV or computer) you can stop, pause and rewind shows - even live broadcasts. You can launch a query on the actor appearing on the screen and get a complete bio of their professional and personal lives, and you can even see who is calling you because caller id is built into it.

With a web enabled wireless phone or PDA you can launch a web browser from anywhere and search or chat, or send and receive emails.

With a laptop with a wireless connection, you can be connected in almost every major airport, hotel and even in most urban areas of some cities. Philadelphia for example wants to have WAPs (Wireless Access Points) scattered throughout the city, allowing it's citizens wireless access to the internet and making the city the worlds largest hot spot.

With all this technology moving so fast, and giving us the ability to be so connected my question is - when is it going to be too much, or worse, when is it going to be not enough?

When is the average user going to be overloaded with so much information (or at least the possibility of so much information)?

Take my example above, about the TV show. Right now if you had the right equipment, not only could you perform that search on the actor on the screen, and get his biography, but you could also find and download any or all of his previous movie appearances. Soon, I'd imagine that ALL of his previous screen appearances - whether they are other TV shows, made for TV movies, talk show appearances and even guest appearances on other shows will be made available for download and searching.

With other technology that is being built, you will soon be able to take a picture with your wireless phone of someone or something and have the picture recognized as a person or place, and then search for it. So let's say you thought you saw a celebrity on the street, but couldn't remember his name. You could take his picture, and search for him to find out who he is, again get his bio, and also send movies to your home.

As you may see, there is a huge potential for information overload. Sure it's handy to have all that at your fingertips, but is it necessary?

And what happens when you become the victim of the picture taken on the wireless phone? That person will be able to find out who you are, where you live and work and likely be able to find some background about you.

Right now it is common to "Google" a prospective employer or employee, or competitor. Any edge you can get in business is considered a good edge.

So while giving people more access to more sources of information seems like a great idea, it has to be taken seriously as there is a huge potential to abuse the use of that information.

And what happens when, despite all this access to billions of pages of information, from virtually any place in the world, we begin to say "it's not enough."

When the average user expects a web page to load in less than a second compared to the 7 seconds on average now. Or the size of a site becomes the ultimate ranking factor - sites smaller than a few thousand pages aren't considered authorities.

I think that is truly the question - while all this access to these billions of pages is great right now, what happens when it's not enough?

Rob Sullivan
Production Manager
Enquiro.com

Copyright 2004 - Searchengineposition Inc.