The Web 2.0 blogs are a buzz over the new changes in Google Maps (My Maps) which let users build their own maps. Several smaller startups (like Platial, Frappr) had already been working on map mashups and Google’s move may effectively kill them.

Since a good part of Web 2.0 is in small companies providing new combinations of things found on the net, all in an air of presumed good will and camaraderie among companies, some bloggers have gone so far as to say that this is the day Web 2.0 died. Google shouldn’t be killing the ecosystem it created, they say.

For those of us who have seen this sort of thing over and over again in IT, oddly enough, such naiveté is refreshing.

A curious book, Knowledge Assets, written way back in 1998 by Max Boisot (a consultant and university professor places like Oxford, Cambridge and Wharton) actually predicts many of these market shenanigans.

Information, according to Boisot, has three dimensions which help describe how information flows and is capitalized by firms (bear with me, this won’t be too painful). The first dimension is a codification dimension. Information that is highly codified has concepts that are easily mapped to categories (e.g., “Kellen” is mapped to [Last name]) and the rules of assignment are well understood or documented. Information that is poorly codified is difficult to assign to a category, is ambiguous or fuzzy and the rules of assignment are poorly understood or vague.

The second dimension is one of abstraction. Highly abstract information has a smaller set of more difficult to initially understand set of concepts that are more general-purpose. Consider the concept “entropy” which can be considered somewhat abstract. Consider the concept “sand” which is decidedly more concrete. The third dimension is one of diffusion. Information that is highly diffused is shared widely. Information that is not diffuse is held within a few people’s minds or hands.

Much of the data in question in Web 2.0, including the user-supplied data in Google’s My Maps, is data that may often be mildly or poorly codified, almost never highly abstract and very easily diffused. Boisot writes, back in 1998, that extracting direct economic value from this kind of information will be difficult. It is too chaotic. The market for this information will also be typically dynamic and fast changing. Intellectual ownership of

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