The web from a complex adaptive systems perspective

The web continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, and the amount of information on the web is overwhelming. Finding the relevant information remains a big challenge. Due to its wide distribution, its openness and high dynamics, the web is a complex system, for which we have to imagine mechanisms of content maintaining, filtering and organizing that are able to deal with its evolving dynamics and distribution. Integrating mechanisms of self-organization of the web content is an attractive perspective, to match with these requirements. Self-organized complex systems can be programmed using situated multi-agent systems with a coupling between the agents’ social organization and spatial organization. This paper explores the web from a complex adaptive system (CAS) perspective. It reviews some characteristic behaviors of CASs and shows how the web exhibits similar behaviors. We propose a model and a prototype of a system that addresses the dynamic web content organization, adopting the CAS vision and using the multi-agent paradigm. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.