Listening to Tim O'Reilly when he talks about the alignment of speech databases and search databases leaded me writing the following TWEET:

SINIWELER: The new search technologies create search highways - but what will happen with the offroad pathways? @timoreilly

TIM O' REILLY ANSWERED AS FOLLOWS: @siniweler My sense is that search produces both offroad pathways and highways. It's very analogous to the way physical roads formed.

SINIWELER REPEATED: @timoreilly - with maybe one BIG difference: in physical world roads produce traffic, in search world traffic produces roads

AGAIN TIM O'REILLY: @siniweler Actually, historically most roads started with traffic, not the other way around. Intentional roads a later development.

AND SINIWELER: @timoreilly - my approach was less historically but more philosophically or even ontologically. but thx for responding!

What happened here? I think it's a principal difference approaching this subject. The reason why I mistrust analogies with the real world when it comes to think about search development is, that in physical worlds/cities even the narrowest allies are still existing. They are maybe a bit scary to walk in, because they are dark and inhabited with awkard people, but they are there. Whereas in a search world/city wher the roads are just made out of traffic, these allies are are maybe also there because of the rules of statistic distribution but - and that is the main difference - there are not perceptible because we are lacking the tools.

Search tools are whores of statistics. And statistics are whores of numbers. Big numbers. Otherwise the visualization tools will relentlessly ignore them. Which means: not putting them on the map. And into existence.