Rethinking Information Overload

"America has, in fact, transformed journalism from what it once was, the periodical expression of the thought of the time, the opportune record of the questions and answers of contemporary life, into an agency for collecting, condensing and assimilating the trivialities of the entire human existence, [...] the frantic haste with which we bolt everything we take, seconded by the eager wish of the journalist not to be a day behind his competitor, abolishes deliberation from judgment and sound digestion from our mental constitutions. We have no time to go below surfaces, and, as a general thing, no disposition."

Yesterday's George Will column? Guess again. The year is 1891 and journalist W. J. Stillman is complaining about the telegraph and the death of "real" news!

I have been interested in the process of managing information overload for some time now. The most interesting recent thoughts I have seen come out about how to deal with this fundamental (and apparently long-term) problem come from NYU professor and tech guru Clay Shirky. I have pointed to Shirky's work before but, if you have not seen Shirky's recent speech at the Web 2.0 Expo and you are at all concerned with the issue of information overload, you owe it to yourself to do whatever you have to do to see this video. Shirky's a good speaker and the insight he provides into this problem is brilliant:

"It's The Filter, Stupid!" And Other Links Of Interest (Link List)

Too many fascinating things crossing my desk today...

Lifehacker is carrying a video (see below) of Clay Shirky's brilliant speech at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in New York on information overload and filtering. I know, I know; it sounds like it is about as much fun as exploratory surgery, but once you start to watch I think you will be (as I was) riveted. Shirky puts an entirely different spin on information overload and then makes a compelling case for his point of view. It made me look at the issue from an entirely different perspective.



The "filtering problem" that Shirky discusses is about to get bigger if Technorati's 2008 The State Of The Blog report is any indication (Check out the graphic below -- click on it to go to the report). They will be releasing it in bits and pieces. So far they have put out the Intro and their section on "Who Are The Bloggers?" The answers will surprise you, I suspect, as the blogosphere continues to not only grow in terms of numbers but also to broaden in terms of appeal.



One of the possible solutions to filtering is known as the "semantic web", where the computer and user can understand each other in more natural terms. Thomson Reuters has just released its semantic application, Calais, into the wild to see what people do with it (Thanks, Krishna!). See the promo video below:




The Institute For The Future (wouldn't you love to work there?) is putting together its own what-could-be-called filtering solution in the form of a predictive game called "Superstruct". The game doesn't go online until 6 OCT 2008 but it looks a good bit like Impact Game's "Play The News" which I think is a fantastic (and sometimes humbling) learning tool. The video below gives you some idea of the type of scenario they will be examining but you really need to go to the site to get the details