“Let me ’splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up” — Inigo Montoya
Ok. One more time. Why Bscopes?
What terms do I use to name the problem we see: overload, clutter, chaos, too much info…?
Here’s a quick list of a few of the more recent blog posts on these topics:
- Erick Schonfeld’s post Web 3.0 Will Be About Reducing the Noise—And Twhirl Isn’t Helping (and its 154 comments) included these ideas:
But if you think it is hard enough to keep up with e-mails and instant messages, keeping up with the Web (even your little slice of it) is much worse.
Web 3.0 will be about reducing the noise. [...] I hope Gould is right, because what we really need are better filters.Erik is almost there. He has nailed the problem, but not the solution. As we’ve said before, filters are not enough.
- Cvivion writing on Your Brand, Your Self: Web Identity Coming Of Age? mentioned:
As the number of these tools grow the signal to noise ratio grows. As the noise grows, the experience becomes weakened, both for you and for people searching for you.
Right! This hits to the heart of what we think is important. Separating the signal from the noise is cutting through the clutter.
- Tris Hussey on the MapleLeaf 2.0 blog post Are better applications the solution to the information firehose? writes this observation:
The information firehose is something that we all suffer from nowadays. I won’t even use the incremented number of Web x.0, that’s just foolish marketing, but we are beginning to try to tame the information beast by pulling more together. Is that the right course and will it save us?If services won’t save us, will better applications?
I like Tris’ term of “firehose”. It captures the sense of overwhelming information that we see. And, clearly, we think that applications can help with this problem.
- Ryan Spoon’s blog post Web 3.0 – Making Web 2.0 More Efficient expresses his desire for the next generation of the web:
Eric is right – if web 2.0 is all about creating and finding content; web 3.0 will have to be about simplifying the output.
Ryan also hits the nail on the head. Simplification is a key. We don’t think you can simplify text with text. We think you simplify a thousand words with a picture.
- Scott Karp invites folks to Join The Web Content Conservation Movement in his post where he complains:
… we shouldn’t just be working on the OUTPUT problem by building better filters.
Scott understands that filters aren’t the answer. But I don’t think I agree with the rest of his content conservation approach. Except for the linking part. I like linking.
- Mark Krynsky at his Lifestream Blog wrote a post observing that Lifestreaming Services Need Better Filtering Mechanisms where he states:
Finding ways to limit the firehose of information has become a common theme lately.
He then goes on to note that:
There have been several services released that are now attacking this issue for RSS readers & aggregators using interesting methods to identify and increase visibility of the “good” stuff. They’re using algorithms that take into account trackbacks, comments, Google reader share volume, and other data points to show items that are popular.
Mark is dead on target in describing both the problem and the concept of a solution. So naturally I agree with his brilliance
Hopefully Mark will find Bscopes an interesting method in addition to the others he already knows about. - Ian Kennedy’s post The Lifestream Filter Will be the Next Great Algorithm War picks up this same theme and keenly notes:
So here we are today. It’s like we’re all discovering search engines all over again. In a matter of weeks we’ve gone from “Wow! I can find everything here!” to, “Crap! Over 600,000 results for the phrase Serendipitous Discovery? How can I find the one reference I’m looking for?”
The huge opportunity ahead is a filter to bubble up the things you need to know without missing anything you want to know.Ian is having déjà vu all over again. The overload is very much reminiscent of search results. But no, not filtering.
- Rachel Lovinger in her Meaningful Data blog has a blog post that just from the title clearly shows this problem we see — Information glut: It’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Then, she demands new capabilities:
I’ve heard it said many times that one of the goals of the semantic web is to deal with complexity. There’s definitely a need for it, and that needs is only going to get more urgent as the information-providing services multiply. Bring on the intelligent information-filtering services!
Rachel, we hear you loud and clear. And we are bringing on the services as fast as we can.
- And finally over at ReadwriteWeb, Sarah Perez’s post asserts that Real People Don’t Have Time for Social Media reminds us of the fundamental limitation we can’t escape:
The truth is, being involved in social media takes time, something that most people don’t have a lot of.
Sarah cuts to the heart of the issue. There are just 24 hours in a day. So, we need to make each minute count. We need to find the info we want quickly and easily.
And that’s just some of the chorus of complaints during April. This reinforces our commitment at Bscopes to cutting through the clutter by visualizing the blogosphere. We don’t think you can filter your way out of the overload. In our opinion, you need different tools to cut through the clutter of a massive overload of data.
So, overloaded bloggers of the world, take heart. Someone (well… technically at least two someones) has heard your cry. <insert dramatic John Williams score here>
Over the next weeks and months, we will continue to add more features to Bscopes.com that will enable you to see the Blogosphere more clearly. And as we do that, we really do want feedback from you on how you are using the tools and what works and what doesn’t. Leave us comments. Write posts and ping us with a trackback. Add a Bscope widget to your blog if you like.
As for me… I’m going back to adding another feature. After all, I just promised I would.
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