Robert Scoble in this post shared some interesting thoughts around the ability to easily assemble single content units (tweets, photos, videos, etc) – or atoms – to clusters / packages – or molecules. This is an interesting proposition, both for editors of publishing sites, as well as users in easily creating mash ups on this granular level. It resonates with me as an analogy – much like H2O is more than the sum of its part, and has emergent qualities as a new entity – such topical molecules would probably provide a different perspective than each of its parts seen separately. At a minimum that quality would be convenience and efficiency for others to absorb the information contained in that molecule. I think this is also an apt analogy, because much like molecules cluster to form organelles which form cells which form tissues which form organs, such a simple approach to organizing content is also likely to form something larger (e.g. a site on a given topic) which can feed into something larger (e.g. a network of similar sites, think neural networks) etc., which each dimension of further abstraction potentially leading to new insights (ie. emergent qualities).

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