Do We Need a Better Archive of the Internet? by PBS Idea Channel

In this episode of PBS Idea Channel, host Mike Rugnetta asks whether we need a better archive of the Internet, discusses projects like the Internet Archive, and explores the meaning of ephemeral as it relates to digital content. Rugnetta also points to a recent video from DNews about whether the Internet is changing our memory.

The internet is an archive, but it may not be all that great at it. Sure, it saves any media we can imagine (text, photographs, films, etc). But what about that stuff FROM the network? Status updates, tweets, image macros… they seem to disappear into the ether. Are they not worth as much to us as physical objects? We archive things so we can remember them, so is this network ephemera not worth remembering?