How to overcome information overload
The next Web 2.0 startup that’s worth owning or buying would be the one that finds the cure for the information overload created by the social media.
If necessity is the mother of all inventions, then the solution to help us pick only the ripe fruit and consume it would be her next child.
It’s the natural trend already with social gatekeeping services such as Google News, Digg, and Technorati becoming the entry point for anyone hungry for social content. Couple that with personalisation tools such as Google Reader, FeedBurner, and now the newest attempt, FeedHub and we’re half way there, but still no elixir.
I need not remind us that the days of the agenda setting “press” are quite over. I’m not saying they’re not influential, I’m just saying it’s not all we’ve got. In my opinion the first and best thing for we, who know and are exposed to thissuper market of content that is impossible to consume, is to identify our favourite sources. Selecting the choice trees, if I may continue my above metaphor.
But even that is a bit too much. Robert Scoble can’t figure out his 800 feeds and I’m hardly managing my 100+. I thought once before about pruning those that Google Reader Trends proved I hardly read, but I found that to be quite impossible because there were one or two gems in some of those blogs and I rationalised to leave them there just in case I stumble upon some new ones in my browsing.
So, now that we’ve got our choice feeds, where do we go from here? I like FeedHub’s attempt at teaching the machine, but I’m not convinced that’s utopia.
As I was mulling over this problem, I thought of some features that could be worked into the cure for information overload:
Natural language search interface
Most of the content that goes into feeds are either blog entries or news. Technical content such as how-tos or the Wikipedia tend to be accessed via keyword search on a when-you-need-it basis. News and blog posts however, we like to see constantly updated and refreshed as if we’re fearful to miss the latest trend or gossip. So what are such feed worthy content made of? Strings of natural language!
Human powered recommendation engines
This is my favourite feature on Amazon and some tech news sites. I absolutely love the “people who read (bought) this also like…” system. It’s a beautiful use of the social wisdom and it should be applied to my choice feeds too. Maybe the privacy advocates don’t like a a robot making pubic comparative statistics out of my feeds, but this is one proven feature that I know works and would love for it to manage my feeds. And the trick is not to recommend a feed that I might like, but actual posts! Now that’s a recommendation that cuts through the crap.
Custom channels
Although collecting feeds and dumping them into the reader is an easy way to aggregate, it isn’t the best way to get what you want. I believe that a lot of us already know or have a clue of what we’re after and search is the best way to get that information. Just like how Google Alerts or Miro (my new favourite video app) does it, first we search, then we save that search as a channel which gets updated. This is also the best way to aggregate content such as video, pictures, and audio. Why watch all episodes of diggnation when you only care about those that mention Apple products, for example.
Mobile interface
I mean true mobile interface not just Nokia N95 and iPhone users that have full web browsers on the go. Google Reader has done a decent WAP job, and reading from my Motorola Razr in the train, while in queue, or even when taking a dump can help significantly reduce the information build up. With so much momentum for mobile broadband drumming up all over the world, the mobile platform will play a significant part in the cure for information overload.
Those are my ideas, new ideas are welcome in the comments. All this ideastorming is making me wonder too if there can actually be a “cure” for this problem of information overload. Maybe what I really need is a fruit picker with a crystal ball telling me what I need and which tree to find it on.
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Maybe this problem will never be solved… unless computers find a way to read the human mind.
But, perhaps, what we can do is to limit ourselves to 2-3 bloggers who are authorities on one subject?
Another way - To setup Google Alerts on subjects which we are watching. Once a new webpages pops out on the relevant subject, you would get alerted! The only flaw about it is timeliness (2-3 days lag) and the high possibility of false positives.
The most effective way? Reduce your information consumption and to try to produce original content.
Hey Ben, how’s it going? I can totally relate to the info overload problem, I got at least 200 fees a day coming in, and I’m trying to cope.