I don't like having the feeling that I'm missing out on novelties from the subjects in which I am interested in.
I don't like having the feeling that I'm missing out on novelties from the subjects in which I am interested in. But I just don't have the time to absorb even half of it.
With the current overflow of information, I'm looking for an "administrative of sorts".
Here's what it'd look like: you pick a few of your favorite subjects (technology in general, science, business, programming, politics, etc.).
The aim of this service? Get you up to speed on everything relevant to you in 30 seconds:
Displaying all the news about your selected subjects is not enough, it's still way too much information to process. Through already tested AI on smart summarization, each article will be a piece of bite-sized news.
Within your preferred subjects, each article selected for processing will be selected based on relevance using a scoring system: a mix between overall popularity on the internet and your actual preferences, learned from your selections with another simple AI tool.
It'll take 10-20 seconds to be on the loop on everything you want. You would have missed it otherwise or, even worse, wasted time and energy sifting through it all. Of course, that piece of article that really picked your interest? Just a click away to read it in full.
I know the idea sounds a bit like yet another Flipboard, but that's not where I'm going. Personally, I have too many interesting RSS in Feedly that I can't use it, literally. It would eat my day! Reading the titles makes me want to get into half of the 60 new articles that came just today.
However, 30 articles automagically summarized to a 10% size from a lightweight local app... that's 30 pills, about 4 seconds each. Wonderful 2minutes and I'm UP to date.
Please criticize everything and share any feedback.
#product-feedback-request
I'm not feeling the concept (yet). I like getting the nuance and depth of an article, and to be honest, the mess of comments and controversy. The most unhealthy time-consuming traps are what drive the engagement cycle.
You are absolutely correct in identifying this area as a big problem and possible opportunity. I feel the same frustration as you so I can really identify. I've seen others echo the same concerns, in fact recently on HN. But there are many possible ways to address this (activity tracking, unplugging, etc). I don't know what the solution is, but it's an interesting topic.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! You gave me an interesting insight I overlooked: the engagement that comes from the meat of it all... Which goes the other way to where I'm thinking... I should find a way to make this new format engaging. With these small bite chunks, gamification could play a role (no pun intended). Also maybe a human sentiment score like this one (from a trading app): https://i.imgur.com/U9cPVJP.png
That way you could go directly to the hot topics... and/or check a news summary and the sentiment indicator would tell you how the news has been received... Would it help?
I mean, look at this: https://i.imgur.com/eY4NB4M.png
That is a people eater, a monster. I have to leave with the frustration of knowing there are gold nuggets for me buried in there.
On the other hand (and this has happened to me with other apps), some "articles" are links to the article: https://i.imgur.com/8hin9Ey.png and I don't want to be switching between apps!
There must be something I can do, the current age of information overflow has to have an out.
I've found what works for me is just embracing the frustration and saying "no". I'll often go for spurts with no social media or certain websites at all because I don't want to fall into a trap. You have to mentally associate them as a trap. Which isn't really fair because there's a lot of good content which can help enrich your knowledge, or positive network building effects from engaging with others.
Your screenshots bring up some interesting points.
Any content organiser can also evolve into the monster it wanted to slay. I think this goes back to the point that it comes down to human behaviour at the end of the day. For example I love to collect PDFs and e books even if I can't possibly read them all. We like accumulating and organising things. Eventually it becomes enormous.
Content sites often exist in a state of duality. The same places that try and summarise, centralise, or condense content - are also incentivised to maximise engagement. Two states that are potentially antagonistic depending on the users' underlying motivations.
Part of me thinks there may be an increased role for human curation in our increasingly algorithm driven world.
I'm sorry, I've been swamped. I also accumulate ebooks like a child on Christmas day even though deep down I know I'll never have the time to read half of them. Moreover, when I do, I'm sure I'll get newer books...
Your last paragraph made me think of the game RimWorld. In case you haven't played, when starting the game gives you a choice between (IIRC) three AI "directors" of the game. One will be more spontaneous, lively, etc. The other will let you grow almost with no foreign attacks and so on.
That, plus Steam's content curators... could be the choice. Also, if you don't know, Steam's content curators are humans, in this case, that play many games. There are a lot of them, and for example, on my steam account, I usually buy business/engineering/management games, so the system suggested me to a curator, and his/her historical most of the games were of my taste. Since then, only checking out what this curator says about the games he/she plays, is more than enough — no more sifting through lists of games.
So, how about 20 news curators? Each curator would be like a small version of a journal editor. With a few questions about your interests, the system would recommend you one curator or the other, the best in sync with your interests are, the better... and enough losing tons of time trying to keep up with the world.
This could work.