The U.S. Air Force, completely bogged down with information overload trying to read every blog in the world, will pay $450,000 to Versatile Information Systems Inc. to have the company develop a means of sorting out the most important new information being posted to weblogs.

According to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the study will follow the hyperlinks in and between blogs to find what is being linked to most frequently. This will help to find the most important or newsworthy information at any point in time.

One of the problems analysts may have with blog monitoring, [Versatile senior scientist Dr. Brian E.] Ulicny noted, is there is too much actionable information for the analyst to properly analyze.

“We are developing an automated tool to tell analysts what bloggers are most interested in at a point in time,” Ulicny said.

This analysis, Kokar said, is based on what Versatile Information Systems calls the RSTC approach to blog analysis — relevance, specificity, timeliness, and credibility. RSTC helps information analysts filter the most important information to study.

“Relevance involves developing a point of focus and information related to a particular focus,” Kokar said. Timeliness has to do with immediacy — how important is a topic now. “Credibility,” he continued, “is the amount of trust you have in an information source.”

Finally, specificity can provide value to information analysts depending on how general or specific they need the information to be. — Air Force Office of Scientific Research Public Affairs

What’s not mentioned is the tools along these lines already developed in the private sector. I wonder if they’ve ever heard of Technorati, or del.icio.us, or digg. If not, I can put together a link analysis system for them in one year for half the price. (Sorry, Jim. It’s a free market…)

Ulicny goes on to cite for example the printing of cartoons of Mohammed by a Danish newspaper, which appeared in the blogosphere long before it was known to U.S. media. But it was right there on the top ten list on the Technorati front page for all to see.

The Central Intelligence Agency also reads blogs in order to find actionable intelligence. They, at least, have heard of Technorati. So have the U.S. Central Command, responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who have several people reading blogs all day.