Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

re: Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

PeterCashmore — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 00:00:07 GMT

Nice post. Holistic solutions are hard, but I think if Memeoradum let users import an OPML file, that would be a major step forward. I think Ross Mayfield suggested this too. As far as I can see, Memeorandum must work on some kind of "list" in order to keep out splogs, but it could become broader by covering more topics.

You're right - Memeorandum lacks the depth you can get from your feedreader, and your feedreader lacks a threaded/clustered view to let you see the bigger picture. It can't be long before someone ticks off all the points on your list, though.

re: Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

J Wynia — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 02:34:45 GMT

What I've been doing to get past most of these limitations is by using an email account designated for this purpose only and using Thunderbird and Outlook's views and saved searches as well as their just generally useful tools for sifting through the pile of information.

My OPML file is parsed by a custom PHP script that grabs all of the new articles. It then grabs relevant information about each feed (from web service API's, etc.) and each posting: keywords, relative popularity of the feed itself, any private tagging or trust rankings I add, etc. Those extra dimensions are added to each item as X-FeedKeywords, X-Technorati-Inbound, etc. The resulting feed item email is then deposited in the inbox.

With the extra X-Headers, I can filter for all postings with keywords "microsoft" and "live", also tagged as "highly trusted" and posted within the last 24 hours. And, I can save it as a saved search in Thunderbird.

I tried piles and piles of online aggregator tools and standalone tools, and was disappointed by them all. Ironically, this included the purpose-built features for RSS in Thunderbird.

Almost without exception their only method of presenting me my feeds was in a straight tree structure with one folder per feed and highlighting unread.

Overall, it meets all of the criteria you're talking about.

The calculated keywords and views/filters let you group by specific keywords or combinations of keywords. Email clients are built for threading, though my current system could be enhanced by looking for interlinking postings to change the "in response to" email headers that email clients use for threading. It allows completely arbitrary dimensions of meta data being attached to a given item, and mail clients like Thunderbird an handle filters on arbitrary headers.

I set it up for myself because it leveraged the existing toolset. I have no doubt that eventually the RSS readers themselves will catch up, but the email clients are already there and I don't want to wait. All that was necessary was to hook the RSS to IMAP email (for multi-pc synchro) and add the semantic analysis of each post as it comes through.

I've been starting to use Outlook instead and am exploring the views it provides, but I haven't been using Outlook2003 for long enough to quickly set it up to see if I'd like it. I do and now I'm figuring out how Outlook itself and basic scripting to enhance it can improve on the duct-tape setup I've built so far.

I think the key for anyone looking to improve this space is to pretty much allow arbitrary views, sorting and grouping on a big pile instead of trying to store anything in neat folders from the beginning. Every single user is going to have slightly different ways they will want it organized. The tool that "wins" is the one that lets them do what they really want without a hassle. And, what they really want isn't easily knowable in advance.

re: Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

alexbarn — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 03:35:25 GMT

Thanks Peter...OPML import idea: glad we're thinking along the same lines :-)

JWynia: Loved your comment...sounds like yuo've got it cracked...

Can you do screencasts? It would be a great way of seeing what you mean – a couple of scenarios/ use cases would be fantastic.

What do you think?

Alex.

re: Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

Nick Bradbury — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 04:14:28 GMT

Alex, I was able to follow the Microsoft Live chatter quite easily in FeedDemon by creating a "Watch" for these keywords/phrases:

* live software
* Windows Live
* Office Live
* Microsoft Live

FeedDemon then watched every feed in my subscriptions and collected items containing any of these phrases.

If you wanted a smaller result set, you could also create a watch which looked for both "Microsoft" and "Live" in titles only.

And if you wanted to search outside of your subscriptions, you could add a "Keyword Search" which subscribed to a feed generated from a search engine such as Feedster or Google Blog Search.

BTW, FeedDemon does have a "Search My Feeds" feature - look for the "Search" panel below your watches.

re: Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

alexbarn — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 04:33:50 GMT

Thanks Nick, just played with it and works v.well! Will correct (that's why I wanted this as a wiki - I knew I must have missed stuff).

Funny, I've been using FeedDemon for ages and never actually tried the watch out. Classic.

Alex.

re: Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Attention Gap Analysis

John Tropea — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 03:35:30 GMT

In regards to point 2., I believe RSS Bandit and SharpReader do some sort of basic threading

In regards to point 4. Feedster allows you to search within an OPML (generates a feed), but you can do this with Bloglines anyway...I suppose it's good so others can do the same with your OPML.

Your posts are on fire at the moment, look forward to reading your stuff!

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