Makeup a story

Defined simply, information is the stuff we want to consume (music, video,
sound, writing.
2. Information comes in types. For example, the main type of information on
Facebook is person, but they also have events, locations, and companies.
3. Information types have attributes associated with them. These can be
optional or a requirement for that type of information. For example,
Facebook requires the person type to have a name and gender. But birthday
is optional.
4. Attributes have values. For example, on Facebook the person type has an
attribute called name. In my account the name attribute has a value of Bob
Boiko. Values usually have a certain pattern or form. For example, a "date of
birth" attribute must have a date pattern in the value.
5. An information item is one complete set of values. For example, on
Facebook one complete person includes values for name (Bob Boiko),
birthday, city of birth, likes, status updates, etc.
6. The lifecycle of information is the way information is originated, used and
finally retired.
7. In general, information is stored in databases. Think of them like a
spreadsheet or table containing columns and rows of data.
8. The first way we organize is by indexing (alphabetical and/or numerical
lists of names). For people, the more traditional method is by last name
(Boiko, Bob); a newer way that reflects how many people think about names
organizes by first name (Bob).
9. The second way to organize information is to link it to other pieces of
information. Social graphs are just a representation of all people in your
social network organized by links.
10. A third way to organize information is by sequences. For example Facebook
can put your friends in order, indicating that you should look at one friend
before another. The friend list on Facebook profile pages might be arranged
by who is most important, who you contact most, or something similar (not
alphabetically). Google search results are arranged by what result Google
thinks you should see first.
11. The fourth choice for organization is hierarchies, or outlines. Family trees
or Tables of Contents are examples of this. They organize information by
levels, or , you can say, by parents and children.
12. Your identity on the Net, all the data that is collected about who you are, is
tied together with an identifier. It is a unique token, a string, a picture, or
something else that is specific only to you. This is how we distinguish
between identities, and know who is who.
13. We can use sequential numbers as identifiers if we never go backwards or
reuse numbers. This can be simple and effective (unless you're spanning
different systems). Systems can't keep track of other system's assignments
of numbers.
14. We can use random numbers as identifiers if you have a high enough
maximum identifier number and choose identifiers randomly, it can be very
improbable that the same number twice will be chosen twice.
15. In global unique identifiers (GUIDs) systems choose a random number
from a very large pool and be almost positive that no other system at no
other time has chosen the same number.