But doesn't that mean that information is 'recommended' to users based on personal preferences and a technical algorithm? The question that arises is how 'personal' an automated overview service is. Can it satisfy your need for information and also surprise you with valuable information?
Because don't I also want to absorb market information that is not already generally known within my network? My colleague Joost Steins Bisschop already wrote a column about this kind of news, the serendipity news .
Curating information
Close to home, a development is taking place that addresses both the accumulation of information online and the fact that too much automation can lead to an incorrect selection of information. Ernst-Jan Pfauth, chief Internet NRC Handelsblad and nrc.next and colleague Ward Wijndelts of NRC Digitaal, will be working on a web service in the coming period that works on the basis of curating information.
'Curators' are experts in a certain field and have a full-time job collecting relevant information. Like Gonny van der georgia phone number list Zwaag on iPhoneclub.nl or Frank (and his colleagues) here on Frankwatching. These people take away your uncertainty, do the selection work for you, if you like.
Pfauth and Wijndelts are leaving their current positions and are working on their new service with the support of the NRC. They want to ensure that everyone can share information on their own field of expertise or interest on a clear platform. This way, it is easy for visitors to select and follow the right expert on a specific area of interest (on that platform).
The selection of information by a 'curator', of flesh and blood, is personal. Someone goes out every day to collect information. An automated process tells you which information you probably like, a curator collects high-quality information and has the potential to surprise you with relevant pieces. That seems to me a promising starting point.
A conclusion? As far as I'm concerned, there isn't one yet. The core of this story is that there is an overview problem. A problem that is getting bigger and bigger, which is why we are desperate for a good solution. It is very interesting to see that all sorts of things are happening in the country of 'information regulation'. That makes me curious about the developments in the near future. In this context, it is also nice to see that Hyves recently announced that it wants to develop from a social network to a content network .
In order not to miss anything, I will for the time being use a combination of my 'good-old' Google Reader, the overflowing timeline in my Tweetdeck and a daily summary of much-discussed information via Summify to select relevant information.