The Information Discovery Graph: Towards a Scalable Multimedia Resource Directory

In this paper, we present the design, rationale, and basic mechanisms of the Information Discovery Graph (IDG), a scalable multimedia resource directory. Facing the fundamental challenge of scaling with both large amounts of resources and large numbers of users, the IDG is made up of a self-organizing hierarchy of information managers, each maintaining resource information for specific topics or areas. Multimedia data sources register themselves with the IDG system and keep the information up-to-date. Preliminary simulation results demonstrate the approach’s promise. A number of open research issues are also addressed.