Observations about Serendip's Information Structure

1. Information units (web pages, directories) stay in fixed locations.
2. Links to and from information units change dynamically, but most often when the information unit is located "outside", i.e. not under local control.
3. Existing local links among information units tend to stay stable, but additions to their number grow as an exponential function.
4. Information units which aggregate other information units to perform routing and directory functions are created when some threshold number of information units is reached (such as n=10). Depth of storage tree equals 2 for nodes ~= 1,000, equals 3 for nodes ~= 10,000, equals (n-1) for 10ⁿ nodes.
5. Some small number of information units (web pages, directories) stop growing and/or become orphaned.
6. Multiple paths to information units are available; finding the most efficient path is an instance of the travelling salesman problem. Centralized routing mechanisms (e.g. information unit ordered by reverse chronology, information unit ordered by physical topography, search engine with hash table) become more necessary for finding information with larger scale (depth=3).
7. Random discovery mechanisms (e.g. randomizer logo) have a role in interactions with the system as a whole.
8. Choices for locating information storage can be somewhat non-obvious or arbitrary when the information matches criteria in more than one category.