Information Overload, a problem or an opportunity

I wrote this one a while back and realized I had posted its sequel already, so maybe it is time to post this one already. If anyone is ready of it, sorry about that.

I look at information overload in two ways. On the one hand there seem to be so much information out there, how can you find the stuff you care about? The other one is how easily you can publish information about yourself on-line, whether you want to or not.

For the first part, does the Internet have too much information? The Internet is has much about democratization of publishing capability as anything else (well maybe not, but it is one of the best side effects). I still read books, but most of the information I use on a daily basis in on-line. As soon as it costs less than $5 for me to print an entire book at home, I am not sure I will ever need to go to a bookstore. Although browsing on-line does not really the same experience, I can make my own hot chocolate while browsing the books, I down need the cafe experience as well. I have been subscribing to o'reily radar for a while where the subject of the future of publishing comes up on a regular basis. They should know, I find their discussions about the Internet fascinating.
I came across this Ted presentation where the speaker discuss the fact that we do not have too much information, we always had that, we only have inappropriate filters.

I suppose I already have my own ideas about what those filters could be. So, it would then seem that it is not so much there is too much out there, it is just that we need better ways to get to it.

As for the second part, information about yourself being published. I goggled myself once, and I found a reference that seemed to match. I went to that web site where I could find my phone number and address. I can Google my phone number and find my name and address. I got more involved and tried a few web sites. I am now in Flickr,  Facebook, LinkedIn, I share articles I like in Google Reader and even started twittering (is this a verb in the dictionary yet?). It took me a while to get to twitter because I could not see myself telling others small things on a regular basis ('I am eating', 'I am thinking about going to bed', etc.). Still it seems like a nice way to learn about people I know. I got to learn a few things here are there, it was nice. I might get to publish some of my own at some point. After watching the Ted video, I went and paid attention to the security settings. Apparently it is one of the best for a social site. I was hoping to at least have a differentiation between friends and family, like Flickr does. I was surprise to discover it was not there. So what do you when your parents subscribe to your page. I don't have that problem, but I will definitely register to my son's when the time comes :). I don't really like people knowing about my birthday, I am still trying to find a way to hide that. Maybe I should change it to a false one and stop worrying about it. The other concern is that I need 3 profiles at least, a work one, a family one and last one for friends. Until this is possible, the lowest common denominator will probably win. Is it just me or it should be work for all working individual?
So, my issue now is how to keep all those sites up to date? Updating my status in Facebook does not update Twitter. That's a nice application to write for Facebook, I should look into that. I am spending so much time thinking about blog, pictures, keeping in touch... Finding a way to communicate efficiently is becoming difficult. Can't my Flickr pictures be automatically referenced in Facebook and notify twitter about it?
The next worry is of course privacy. Because of all the information I post to all the sites, there is so much more about myself on-line than there had been before two years ago, I have looked at Mint and PageOnce as well, they look great. Unfortunately I have not found the courage to give that much information about myself in one site. You are never sure where the company will go in the future and they could be. I suppose that's if you are lucky, the company is still there and your information still exists. I am a bit scared of having one place which would have the list of all my web sites and a way to aggregate all that information about me. Just too scary to think about it at this point. All I need is for them to expose my information using the Google social API and everyone knows.

So what is the conclusion of all that? I need to subscribe very carefully to a few feeds and keep an eye for new ways to filter information so I do not spend 3 hours everyday catching up with the world while still learning about things I did not know I wanted to know more about. For now I need to find a way to keep my private information locally and synchronized will all my computers and all. I have started writing my own contact management application because nothing I find satisfy me and I am curious about what could be done. Nothing like doing it yourself to find out. I will wait for this magic web application which will let me control my information and not give it to anyone else. How long will the wait be?

I suppose I already have my own ideas about what those filters could be. So, it would then seem that it is not so much there is too much out there, it is just that we need better ways to get to it.

As for the second part, information about yourself being published. I goggled myself once, and I found a reference that seemed to match. I went to that web site where I could find my phone number and address. I can Google my phone number and find my name and address. I got more involved and tried a few web sites. I am now in Flickr,  Facebook, LinkedIn, I share articles I like in Google Reader and even started twittering (is this a verb in the dictionary yet?). It took me a while to get to twitter because I could not see myself telling others small things on a regular basis ('I am eating', 'I am thinking about going to bed', etc.). Still it seems like a nice way to learn about people I know. I got to learn a few things here are there, it was nice. I might get to publish some of my own at some point. After watching the Ted video, I went and paid attention to the security settings. Apparently it is one of the best for a social site. I was hoping to at least have a differentiation between friends and family, like Flickr does. I was surprise to discover it was not there. So what do you when your parents subscribe to your page. I don't have that problem, but I will definitely register to my son's when the time comes :). I don't really like people knowing about my birthday, I am still trying to find a way to hide that. Maybe I should change it to a false one and stop worrying about it. The other concern is that I need 3 profiles at least, a work one, a family one and last one for friends. Until this is possible, the lowest common denominator will probably win. Is it just me or it should be work for all working individual?
So, my issue now is how to keep all those sites up to date? Updating my status in Facebook does not update Twitter. That's a nice application to write for Facebook, I should look into that. I am spending so much time thinking about blog, pictures, keeping in touch... Finding a way to communicate efficiently is becoming difficult. Can't my Flickr pictures be automatically referenced in Facebook and notify twitter about it?
The next worry is of course privacy. Because of all the information I post to all the sites, there is so much more about myself on-line than there had been before two years ago, I have looked at Mint and PageOnce as well, they look great. Unfortunately I have not found the courage to give that much information about myself in one site. You are never sure where the company will go in the future and they could be. I suppose that's if you are lucky, the company is still there and your information still exists. I am a bit scared of having one place which would have the list of all my web sites and a way to aggregate all that information about me. Just too scary to think about it at this point. All I need is for them to expose my information using the Google social API and everyone knows.

So what is the conclusion of all that? I need to subscribe very carefully to a few feeds and keep an eye for new ways to filter information so I do not spend 3 hours everyday catching up with the world while still learning about things I did not know I wanted to know more about. For now I need to find a way to keep my private information locally and synchronized will all my computers and all. I have started writing my own contact management application because nothing I find satisfy me and I am curious about what could be done. Nothing like doing it yourself to find out. I will wait for this magic web application which will let me control my information and not give it to anyone else. How long will the wait be?

Can too much information be bad?

I was watching this great video about from Kevin Kelly who gave a great interview at the Web 2.0 Summit. I liked most of the interview, I could not help react to his final vision of the future. Us being connected to all of the data in the Internet cloud, our perceptions being expanded beyond our current "shell". I find the concept scary. I find it scary for 2 reasons. First with all this data available, even I who is a bit wary of doing it too much, I spend most of my time trying to catch up with information. The information overload, I do not need to start again. Second, the notion of always being connected seems a bit disturbing.

On the one hand, I understand the need to have better information. Better connected information with access to the multi-dimensional aspect of information available. A bit like what is available is mashups . A map of my travel pictures combined with pictures taken by other people and articles from wikipedia. But somehow this gets blended in an easy way, not sure I have a vision of what that is at this point. The Internet has so much to be positive about, there is no corner of the planet, or soon anyway, that does not have access to free information, unfiltered. Most people can express opinions and expose anyone (ok, this one could be bad, but it is also pretty cool).

I believe we can run away from ourselves. By trying to learn all the time, we do not really try to understand ourselves. There is a lot that can be done here, but it can only be done while the mind is quiet. Are we going to measure ourselves by the amount of information we have? Or are we going to take the time to understand our nature by taking the time to listen to it.

This kind of thoughts always brings me to how ideas are created. We often refer to the stupidity of crowds and how it is difficult to come up with something brilliant while debating with the rest of the team, the best ideas are created in the shower. I think group meetings are important, this is where you level the plain field, this is where you learn about things that are relevant to what you are trying to achieve, providing you are not too set one way already. But then individuals will take the matter at hand and do something with it. If the group tries to dictate the final answer, you will end up with a common denominator and nothing brilliant (well in most cases anyway). But you can use the group as a way to gather the necessary information to make the idea possible.

So, on the other hand, if the information is available so easily, maybe we do not have to pursue knowledge to that extend, maybe we can relax a bit knowing that once information is needed, it will be easily found. Maybe we will find new grounds to compete in, because we will always compete. Maybe we will excel in synthesizing knowledge and create new intelligence that we will freely give for everyone else to make more knowledge with. That is a bit of an optimistic vision, but I kind of like it. I think it will take a while before people feel comfortable giving away information like this. We might have to change the way we make money or even live, so we do not need money. One can always dream...