How You Handle the Information Overload Is Up to You

This morning, AideRSS introduced an interesting tool that lets you filter your RSS feeds in Google Reader, flagging only those which have been deemed most important, thanks to criteria you set. (Get your invite codes here and see Read/Write Web's coverage)

The concept behind a filter like this is to help you tackle information overload by showing a subset of your feeds, highlighting only those which have gained attention by others, through AideRSS' unique approach, tabulating total number of comments, del.icio.us links, Google links, Diggs, etc. (See our coverage from December) But to me, while I definitely like what AideRSS is trying to do, I don't necessarily want what I read to be determined by the actions of others. I want to be the one who decides, based on the content of an item, if it's something I want to have interest in, to read in full, to share, to comment, or link to. And I would assume that as AideRSS needs some time to populate the attention graph, it would only become most useful as the time after initial publication increases.

When it comes to RSS feeds, many dread the number of items they wake up to each day.

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins, a Mashable editor, in a comment on FriendFeed in response to one of my items, recently said, "Try waking up to about 700 unread inbox items and at least the same number of unread RSS items every morning (only after about 5 hours sleep)! Being an editor is tired work!"

And if it's not managed, it can be. Two weeks ago, I suggested a reader has 1-5 seconds to make a decision on an RSS item. But even if this is a challenge, I would rather be the one making the decision on a feed than letting software tell me what to read, or waiting for others to have already had their say before I get to news.

To me, automated filtering of content to show the most important items, such as that found in TechMeme, ReadBurner, RSSMeme, Feedheads and LinkRiver, is a great tool - because those algorithms are most frequently pointed at feeds I haven't subscribed to. Those robots can bring me new data from sources I don't hit every day. But when it comes to those feeds I've picked to read, you won't ever find me complaining about information overload. I love it. I look forward to new items in Google Reader. I look forward to seeing new items in FriendFeed and Twitter and new e-mail, both at home and at work.

You won't find me declaring RSS feed bankruptcy, or hitting "Mark all as read" in Google Reader. You won't find me complaining about having 100 or 1000 items to go through. As Robert Scoble has often said about Twitter, it's not who is followed the most, but who follows the most, and if I can choose to get the most amount of information in as quickly as possible, instead of waiting for others to tell me it's important, I've got an advantage. But if you are losing the battle against information overload, AideRSS and Google Reader have a strong tool. You can get yours here: http://gr.aiderss.com/?svblog

Scoble's Link Blog Slows to a Crawl

For the better part of 2007, Robert Scoble trumpeted his Google Reader shared items link blog as a potential alternative to TechMeme. As a subscriber to his link blog in my Google Reader, I could typically look forward to a dozen or more new stories each day from blogs I'd never heard of - leading me to a lot of great new sources, many of whom I added to my subscription list.

But then, almost coinciding with his leaving PodTech in mid-January, with sporadic interruptions just prior, the link blogging slowed to a mere crawl, in comparison to his previous activity. Scoble, a busy man, was not only working on starting up FastCompany TV, but was flying all over the world, to the World Economic Forum in Davos, back to the West Coast, and off again to Switzerland this week. And while he found time to stream video on Qik, post to Twitter, and occasionally blog, his link blog was comparatively a low priority.

On January 29th, via Twitter, I asked him about this:
He responded in kind:


My question to him had come after an 8-day gap in the link blog. On January 29th, he shared one item. On January 30, one more. On January 31st, he seemed to approach regular form, with eight links. February started off with a little rhythm as well, six on February 2nd, ten more on the 3rd, and four more on Monday. And again, a return to silence (just two days so far). You can also see Scoble's link blog is not among the leaders in shared items according to ReadBurner's rankings, where it no doubt once would have been.

How does that compare to previous months? Well, on January 15th, Scoble shared 21 items and 17 on the 14th. December 30th was 16 items. December 28th was 15 items. December 27th was 26 items.... and you get the idea. In fact, AideRSS reports Scoble shared 455 posts per month on average, with a total of 2,279 posts since Jul 24 of last year, when the service started counting. (You too can use AideRSS to count these up.)

Did the blogosphere all of a sudden get less interesting? Did Robert stop reading feeds altogether? Has Robert raised the standard for sharing items? Did subscribers complain about the frequency? Maybe it's a mixture of all these things. Maybe he's just reached a point where he's gotten too busy, or the new post-PodTech world keeps him further away from Google Reader than when he was at PodTech.

Regardless of the answer, I hope he soon finds the time to get back to his link blog. I know I've found it a very good resource, just as nearly 300 others have liked the Elite Reddit which some of us B-Listers are working on. There's something to be said about the world of tech news being filtered with real eyes instead of a machine.

Also see: Scoble's Link Blog Delivers An Influential 1 Percent