Too Many Choices, Too Much Content

mazyar hedayat's personal annotations on this page

Mhedayat bookmarked on 2008-06-02

Drowning in Awesomeness

The double-edged sword that comes with keeping abreast of all the latest developments in technology means that we're always aware of the latest and greatest applications and services to try...but it also means that we've tried all of them. Unlike the average user, who doesn't even bother creating a Facebook profile until several of their friends cajole them into doing so, technology early adopters are the first to sign up and create profiles on every service that launches.

Sometimes these services have value; if so, they trickle down to the rest of the world over time. For example, social networks like MySpace and Facebook changed the way people interacted online. Flickr made photo sharing fun, easy, and social. YouTube let everyone be a star. However, sometimes they're not so great after all, and they end up fading away into nothingness in that area we've affectionately dubbed the "deadpool."

These failures don't seem to dampen our enthusiasm for trying the "next big thing," though. Every day, the web is filled with posts about this new app or that great service. When you think about it, it's really rather impressive that there are that many of them out there - enough to be written about in a seemingly nonstop fashion.

For technology enthusiasts, it's not enough to just "try" the new apps and services though. If they're the next big thing (or so everyone says), we're supposed to jump on board and use them, use them, use them. Scoble even recently threatened to expose some of the so-called "A-Listers" for not being active enough, saying:

"I thought about embarrassing most of the A listers on FriendFeed, because very few of them actually read that many blogs (I can tell, they rarely comment on, or link to, or FriendFeed with other people’s blogs)"

This link has been bookmarked by 33 people . It was first bookmarked on 14 May 2008, by - svartling.

27 Apr 09

Aviva Gabriel
social media networking software marketing socialmedia socialnetworking socialsoftware socialmediamarketing portability data social media social networking social media marketing social software overload readwriteweb
14 Oct 08

Chuck Brands
23 Jun 08

Gabriela Grosseck
training_personal twitter
13 Jun 08

Michael Marlatt
rww web2.0 mobile lifestream socialnetworks aggregators
- Too Many Choices, Too Much Content
  
  Written by Sarah Perez / May 14,
  2008 4:00 AM / 42
  Comments
- Too Many Choices
  
  However, there are certain areas we've noticed that seem to be the biggest
  sources of conflict as of late. In these areas, several companies are clamoring
  to be the winner of the space, releasing duplicate or similar products,
  constantly adding new features, and generally trying to one-up their competitors
  in an effort to come out on top. When there are several companies doing the same
  thing, it gets confusing for the average user and time-consuming for the early
  adopters who play with everything. In the end, the hope is that one great
  service would come out on top, but that's hardly ever the case. We're already on
  MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, and LinkedIn because there's no one winner for
  social networks...are we going to have to use all these newcomers battling it
  out, too?
- 3 more annotations...
- - Drowning in Awesomeness
    
    The double-edged sword that comes with keeping abreast of all the latest
    developments in technology means that we're always aware of the latest and
    greatest applications and services to try...but it also means that we've tried
    all of them. Unlike the average user, who doesn't even bother creating
    a Facebook profile until several of their friends cajole them into doing so,
    technology early adopters are the first to sign up and create profiles on every
    service that launches.
  - The Battle of the Lifestreams
    
    There's MyBlogLog's
    lifestream, FriendFeed, Lifestream.fm and even Facebook's
    attempt at lifestreaming, which involves integrating a handful of services
    into users' Mini-Feeds and News Feeds. Too much? You
    betcha. Although FriendFeed is getting buzz, even it doesn't offer a way to
    really filter the info it displays. Sure, the "filter
    by service" Greasemonkey script can help narrow down content and the Friends & Groups script can help sort
    your friends into groups of your own choosing, but we shouldn't have to rely on
    a Firefox
    add-on to make our apps work for us. And while FriendFeed may be one service
    (besides Twitter, of course) that internet
    addicts can't live without, it still has a way to go to cross over to the
    mainstream user, especially if Facebook starts offering similar integration.
  - The Battle of the Mobile Social Networks
    
    This one will really surprise those not following the mobile
    networking space closely. When researching mobile network up-and-comer Brightkite,
    I stumbled upon a slew of mobile networks already competing in the space.
    
    There's MocoSpace, Friendstribe, Hobnobster, Dodgeball, Zyb, mig33, Mobiluck, MeetMoi, JuiceCaster, Loopnote, Rabble, Wadja, Treemo, groovr, flagr, Lime
    Juice, Loopt, and Next2Friends, to name just a few. There are,
    in fact, many, many more. Some focus on texting, some on sharing images, others
    on geo-tagging, and others on traditional social networking. They're all acting
    like the mobile web is the wild west and if they can just get there first they
    might have a shot at winning.
    
    However, who wants to bet that the mobile networks everyone ends up using are
    the ones who aren't pretending that the mobile web is some different web
    altogether? Even more likely winners are the mobile versions of MySpace and Facebook, where all your friends already
    exist.
09 Jun 08

Leo Havemann
attention blogging socialnetworking
02 Jun 08

mazyar hedayat
- Drowning in Awesomeness
  
  The double-edged sword that comes with keeping abreast of all the latest developments in technology means that we're always aware of the latest and greatest applications and services to try...but it also means that we've tried all of them. Unlike the average user, who doesn't even bother creating a Facebook profile until several of their friends cajole them into doing so, technology early adopters are the first to sign up and create profiles on every service that launches.
  
  Sometimes these services have value; if so, they trickle down to the rest of the world over time. For example, social networks like MySpace and Facebook changed the way people interacted online. Flickr made photo sharing fun, easy, and social. YouTube let everyone be a star. However, sometimes they're not so great after all, and they end up fading away into nothingness in that area we've affectionately dubbed the "deadpool."
  
  These failures don't seem to dampen our enthusiasm for trying the "next big thing," though. Every day, the web is filled with posts about this new app or that great service. When you think about it, it's really rather impressive that there are that many of them out there - enough to be written about in a seemingly nonstop fashion.
  
  For technology enthusiasts, it's not enough to just "try" the new apps and services though. If they're the next big thing (or so everyone says), we're supposed to jump on board and use them, use them, use them. Scoble even recently threatened to expose some of the so-called "A-Listers" for not being active enough, saying:
  
  "I thought about embarrassing most of the A listers on FriendFeed, because very few of them actually read that many blogs (I can tell, they rarely comment on, or link to, or FriendFeed with other people’s blogs)"
26 May 08

Henk Nouwens
informatiemanagement information overload trends social media social networking tools
23 May 08

Qien Kuen
SocialMedia SocialContent overload
- The problem is, while we're busy experimenting with this new thing and that new thing, we might miss out on actually enjoying the services that are already there for us, working just fine, thank you very much.
21 May 08

Oliver Ding
information_overload
- In addition to the everyday struggles of information overload the average computer user deals with - like the overflowing inbox, for example - those in the internet/new media/technology space aren't just overwhelmed with new content, but also with new applications and choices to manage that content. What's a web-app loving person to do?
- Early adopters are not going to stop playing with every new service, but it's clear that we're getting to a point where tools that centralize, aggregate, but most importantly filter our content are going to be the ones that win out. There are only so many hours in the day, and, as it stands right now, every single one of them could be filled just consuming and interacting with content, social media, and web services.
16 May 08

bea fortinez
web
15 May 08

Takuya Homma
HowToLive InformationFlood
- the beauty of open standards is that companies don't have to talk. They can just meet up around interoperable technologies.
- But the battle of RSS filtering doesn't end with Google Reader either. Perhaps not as apparent, but both Twitter and FriendFeed are slowly becoming people's preferred method of getting news. Why read through hundreds of unread, unranked items just to stay on top of the news? If it's any good, you'll hear it on Twitter or see it shared on FriendFeed. Some users are even positioning themselves as "human information filters," on these services, something our newest ReadWriteWeb contributor, Corvida, discussed not to long ago on her personal site. These highly active users (yes Scoble and Louis come to mind) are good friends to have on the service since they'll constantly be posting and filtering the best stuff for you.
matthew solle
Noah Carter
for:jgriffin web2.0 social overload
14 May 08

Tac Anderson
Amen.
"Sometimes it's just hard to keep up. In this technology-focused niche we all live in there are new applications, new initiatives, and new platforms that spring up every day, not to mention constantly breaking news that fills our RSS readers. Take a day off and you're behind."
"It's hard to say. Early adopters are not going to stop playing with every new service, but it's clear that we're getting to a point where tools that centralize, aggregate, but most importantly filter our content are going to be the ones that win out."

ncb media Web2.0 overload social content readwriteweb
Alexis Mons
Social Economie
Wei-Jing Zhu
1-SocialTrends
Wei-Jing Zhu
1-SocialTrends
Stefan Melles
We're getting to a point where tools that centralize, aggregate, but most importantly filter our content are going to be the ones that win out.

aggregator content filter future search mehr... imported1s
shahid bashir
interesting_article_paper
ziru zhu
n新闻评论 friendfeed internet overload rss social news delicious
Jose Roca
social readwriteweb webapps
Jon Aston
content internet news web overload social technology information_overload
a77ila
Brandon Payne
Sometimes it's just hard to keep up. In this technology-focused niche we all live in there are new applications, new initiatives, and new platforms that spring up every ...

Web 2.0
Kim Woodbridge
readwriteweb social media choices content technology web2.0
- svartling
In addition to the everyday struggles of information overload the average computer user deals with - like the overflowing inbox, for example - those in the internet/new media/technology space aren't just overwhelmed with new content, but also with new applications and choices to manage that content.

content information_overload filtering
awqi zar
content info internet news web