Robert Scoble writes about his upcoming session at BloggerCon III (BC3) on Information Overload. (I’m deeeep on the wait list for BC3, which is regretable, as it looks excellent.)
At one point, Scoble states:
::Someone asked me the other day “why don’t you just build a few search queries and delete the rest of your feeds?” I thought about it, but I enjoy the random weird stuff that people blog about. Search queries will only bring back the equivilent of purified sugar. Sweet, yes, but not that nutritious.
It’s why I keep the link blog. It helps me think about everyone of the approximately 3000 items that cross my Tablet PC’s screen every evening. “Is this something my readers need to know or would like to know?” I ask myself.::
Much like the clipping services born in the ’80s, the current state of services like PubSub (which I use and value) are inherently flawed if what you desire is to “find things you’re interested in”, vs “find specific things I direct you to notify me about”.
That’s an important difference, and one that should be solvable. Look at the notion (if not the current implementation) of SonicBreakdown, which I blogged earlier tonight. Basically, it scans your music collection, and compiles related personalized news and information feeds for you from 80 sources.
Now take that up a notch. What if, in addition to telling PubSub his specific keywords, Robert could point it to his Link Blog (which is essentially a collection of his broader interests), and have it return conceptual clusters of posts/feeds, ala Clutsy? Then, turn it up yet another notch by giving Robert an interface to score the results, providing the engine with yet more context on what Robert is really after.
The holy grail sits between fixed result myopia and irrelevant deluge. The tools & tech are out there, someone just needs to string them together.