"The main interface between people and the Internet is the small input text field of the Google search engine. Such a big universe of diverse contents -diverse in format, size, language, structure, message, time and place of creation,…- is commonly observed through a single and narrow lens, a cryptic and rigid algorithm with a basic rule: enter a small text and expect a list of websites. Is like being in a galaxy exploration journey only carrying a magnifying glass.
In the discussion about the evolution of Internet the relation of the people and Internet is more relevant than Internet itself; in other words: Internet is how people relates to Internet. So, as Lev Manovich says, it urges a critique of the search paradigm.
Currently, only programmers have a much richer relation with the digital universe, mainly because they can work with APIs, which give them much more control and access to valuable information. One of the main differences is that a programmer using APIs access richly structured data (not just lists of results). He can understand sets of information from the point of view of semantics, syntactics, geography, time and many other dimensions. They can also combine sources; clean, filter and analyze the information; and, finally, create visualizations. But even a good programmer will need a lot of time to do all these complex things.
From this perspective, it’s quite evident that there is a huge necessity of new tools that allow people to interact with Internet in rich ways (I would also say non-linear ways)."
