Twitter buys Summify
Mike Davidson gives his take on the recent acquisition of Summify by Twitter:
The second reason this is a great acquisition is that it helps hedge against a phenomenon that I think is coming over the next few years: information overload followed by consumption retreat. It’s only a matter of time before people look at all of the distractions they expose themselves to every day and realize it is keeping them from living productive lives. Twitter, Facebook, and RSS before them have hastened this effect, and while it’s still only a problem at the edges, it will get more pronounced each year. - Mike Davidson
I feel like I hit this stage about a year ago. So many social streams to keep control of, all with a different subset of friends, context, and news stream. I started years ago with bookmarking sites, then to RSS feeds, then to social streams which kept me updated and bubbled the news to the top. Then I came to the realization that there was a lot of noise to sift through to get to the things that mattered. Then I took a step back and realized how much time I spent trying to keep track of all of these sources, and how much time was wasted sifting through the noise. It was clearly time to step back. The steps I took were simple, for me:
- I stopped checking Twitter every 15 minutes.
- I unsubscribed from a large amount of e-mail newsletters, and stopped checking my e-mail several times throughout the day.
- I cleaned up my RSS feeds. I looked at my own patterns and realized there were some feeds that I simply wasn't interested in anymore, or they were inactive. These were mostly feeds that because aggregate of other feeds.
- The most important: I realized that life would go on if I didn't know the instant something happened.
Mike goes on to talk about his ideal news site. He describes it as a simple, with just 5-10 items a day. He states:
This site needs to be smart enough to pick the top 5 or 10 for me with almost 100% certainty. You will know it works when it’s creepy. I liken it to Barack Obama’s daily briefing he gets from his advisors. He doesn’t have time to scour news sites all day so his advisors tell him what he absolutely needs to see every morning and then, here’s the key part: he gets on with his life. - Mike Davidson
While I still have concerns about this Artificial Intelligence approach, I like the idea. You get rid of the fire-hose and focus on what matters, and then get on with what you were doing. We have grown into a need for immediacy, but looking back at myself, I don't see how it offered value over the time it took away from keeping me focused. The danger in something like this is a confirmation bias. You only see the news that you want to see, and you don't get a broader perspective. How can you create a system that lets you know what you don't know, if it's so busy being trained to what you do know?