
Data on an Epic Scale ◾ 39
EXERCISES AND POINTS TO PONDER
1. Web 2.0 services are notoriously secretive about the scale of their server operations,
but information does make its way into the public domain. What can you nd out
about the latest state of play of these company’s operations?
2. In Section 4.1.4 we discussed the idea of human-edited search listings. A project
which still pursues this approach is the Open Directory Project (ODP), also known
as Dmoz. Explore this service and nd out about its history and current status. What
are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? Find out what the research
literature has to ...