
Slaves of the feed – This is not the realtime we’ve been looking for - swombat
http://000fff.org/slaves-of-the-feed-this-is-not-the-realtime-weve-been-looking-for/
======
markkat
Interesting thoughts. Personally, I think that we need to look more at the
nature of ourselves, and less at the nature of the information. We are social
creatures that have evolved to interact in a certain way.

Part of the information overload IMO, stems from the fact that it is
satisfying only one aspect of our need to socialize. I think what is lacking,
is the ability to go socially deeper with the information presented. If we
find like minded folk, we should be able to form transient groups about this
commonality, and then dissolve it or ignore it when we are concerned about
something else.

The problem I have with much of the information I am fed, is that it treats me
like a flat list of interests. It doesn't react to my mood, and it generally
doesn't allow me to make meaningful connections.

One thing I appreciate about HN, is that the people here work to inject an
intellectual social human element to the interaction. The platform might not
be optimized for it, but it is more or less successful.

~~~
MediaBehavior
> We are social creatures...

Yes, but as any cognitive psychology banks his career on... we are also
_information-seeking_ creatures: basing survival strategies on our ability to
predict, control, and assess the degree of our control, etc.

See also the last decade's research on choice behavior, etc. The whole field
of marketing psychology is based on information processing (not necessarily
_rationally evaluated_ information, but interpretations of _numerous forms of
infomration_ ).

~~~
markkat
> _Yes, but as any cognitive psychology banks his career on... we are also
> information-seeking creatures: basing survival strategies on our ability to
> predict, control, and assess the degree of our control, etc._

That is actually to my point. I think feeds satisfy the information gathering
aspect of our needs quite well. However, I think in large part, these services
fail to provide our need to meaningfully share and to build valuable
connections based on that sharing.

------
petercooper
This is a problem I've been batting around in various forms over the last
several years, most recently with my "Weekly" Ruby and JavaScript newsletters.
I've had a lot of encouraging e-mails and tweets from people who've "given up"
on the chase for information and who are willing to trust me to curate the
10-20 most interesting stories in their niche. Long may this trend continue
;-)

At the thinner end of the wedge, though, are those information addicts. I
worked on an auto-tagging system for developer content (live at
<http://coder.io/>) for some time. It's turned out not to be as good as I had
hoped (but at least I know why) but I'm not convinced that even developers
are.. and I'm picking my words with trepidation here.. _sophisticated_ enough
to put together queries, filters or even collections of topics _in the main._

Solely my opinion, though, but through these projects (and others) I'm finding
folks prefer branded, curated digests of knowledge rather than filterable,
'queryable' firehoses. Either that, or I'm just better at providing the former
;-)

~~~
pragmatic
> I'm not convinced that even developers are.. and I'm picking my words with
> trepidation here.. sophisticated enough to put together queries, filters or
> even collections of topics in the main.

I'm not convinced it's worth _anyone's_ time to do so.

1\. Master the wonky interface of some search engine.

2\. Be disappointed by results of aforementioned wonky search engine.

3\. Instead find results through rapid iteration of search terms.

I've worked on an in house search engine for the last year. User have been
conditioned by google to just keep trying search terms till you find what you
want. No interface (that I've seen) can beat the rapid iteration of search
terms with fast response times.

A good reference: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565922822>

------
dctoedt
Previous posting w/ 31 comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=996340>

------
pragmatic
I'm curious, what information online is so important that you need immediate
updates?

I can think of a few case like stock prices etc. But your social info?

What are you following that closely? Also how do you get any real word done if
you are constantly drinking from the dirty water fire hose that is social
media?

~~~
ThomPete
Actually my point with the essay was a little bit different.

If we are to have real time it need to inform us without being required to
actively read it.

Mind you that you are constantly bombarded with real time information through
your senses. You could call that a real time feed but instead of experiencing
it as individual feed items, they come together and form a larger picture.

~~~
pragmatic
I wasn't trying to criticize you article, per se.

My comment was more in the philosophical sense of disconnecting from the
constant stream of interference that is the media (social and otherwise).

If you can manage to filter this info to mine the "valuable" stuff, you'll
have an idea for a great company.

~~~
ThomPete
Oh didn't take it as critique. And I agree. The one who solves this might have
an interesting company going for them.

------
romaniv
There is a solution to the described problems that has been around for several
centuries, but vent out of vogue with the emergence of modern online media.
Any good magazine is an example of this solution. A good magazine works
because it collects information related to a certain subject of interest and
has quality control. This can be done online too. Moreover, it is easier and
cheaper to do this online. Unfortunately, this simply isn't being done very
often.

------
Vmabuza
and the HN addiction is not making it easy

~~~
swombat
At least HN is not real-time!... (in the strictest meaning of the word...)

