We are very excited that OnMedia has just announced Aster as one of the winners of the AlwaysOn OnMedia 100, a listing of the top 100 private, emerging technology companies in the advertising, publishing, marketing, branding and PR spaces. As a technology enabler for many media clients like MySpace, Invite Media, aCerno, Aggregate Knowledge (and others soon to be announced), we understand the pressures that media faces today. Our customers are a great testament to the fact that Aster has the best solution to meet the rapidly changing needs of media, to keep up with the huge amounts of data they are managing for themselves and their end clients. More info on Aster’s win here.

I was at Defrag 2008 yesterday and it was a wonderful, refreshing experience. A diverse group of Web 2.0 veterans and newcomers came together to accelerate the “Aha!” moment in today’s online world. The conference was very well organized and there were interesting conversations on and off the stage.

The key observation was that individuals, groups and organizations are struggling to discover, assemble, organize, act on, and gather feedback from data. Data itself is growing and fragmenting at an exponential pace. We as individuals feel overwhelmed by the slew of data (messages, emails, news, posts) in the microcosm, and we as organizations feel overwhelmed in the macrocosm.

The very real danger is that an individual or organization’s feeling of being constantly overwhelmed could result in the reduction of their “Aha!” moments – our resources will be so focused on merely keeping pace with new information that we won’t have the time or energy to connect the dots.

The goal then is to find tools and best practices to enable the “Aha!” moments – to connect the dots even as information piles up on our fingertips.

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