The problem that most people, including myself, run into while browsing the internet is complete information overload. Finding data is a problem that Google mainly solved years ago – now the challenge the typical user faces is how to find relevant information.
In the past, this was done by keywords. There is a problem using keywords to categorize content on the broader scope of the internet – the first is that many items cannot be put into neat categories. What one person might think fits in a certain category doesn’t match what another person things is relevant. Also spammers have learned to capitalize on simple keyword matching so this further dilutes the quality of content you can find via keywords.
New technologies have been popping up all over the web to help mediate this ‘information overload’ problem. Below I mention a handful of these tools which will help you to ‘do more with less’.
For Text
Summarity
Summarity is a web application with an available bookmarklet that will automatically take text, either pasted in or from the referring webpage, and summarize it in as few lines as possible.
There is a great article over at their blog about how great summaries disambiguate topics. That means that when a word is mentioned it uses context to determine what the actual sentence is about.
Sniply
Snip.ly is a URL-shortening service that also allows you to include snippets, or summaries, of the article you are linking too. We have covered snip.ly previously and it continues to be a great service for those looking to save other people’s time by summarizing an article. It would be great to see the auto-summarizing of Summarity and the URL shortening of Snip.ly working together.
For News
Geneio
Geneio is a service that installs on your computer and analyzes your current web history to determine content that interests you. A few minutes after installing, it determines your preferences and generates a homepage which is tailored to your interests.
The thing I like about Geneio is that you do not need to spend any time ‘training’ it. Once you install it, it uses your past web history to determine the types of articles and topics that you are already interested in, and I’ve found it to be fairly accurate.
Google News
Google News is a straight up aggregator of news items. It determines what is popular based on the volume of articles from different news sites; making sure that you don’t read any ‘fluff’ content and stick to the main articles at any moment in time.
TechMeme
TechMeme or “Tech Memorandum” is a website which uses both algorithmic and human based content filtering to give you the top stories. Its blended approach gives readers a great overview of the goings on at any time in the tech world (and I am assuming you are interested in this as well since you read MakeUseOf!). TechMeme is the first site I visit in the morning while catching up on the latest news of the day.
For RSS
My6Sense
My6Sense is a startup with a horrible name but one which has really saved me a lot of time. Their software only works on the iPhone and Android platform, but once you start using it you will understand why it is such a great product. Once you import your RSS feeds from Google Reader, and your Twitter and Facebook accounts, My6Sense begins analyzing how your read items and will start to give you personalized relevant results.
Rather than go based on what you think you are interested in, My6Sense actually looks at what you click on – they have found that sometimes the two don’t exactly match up. In this way they can determine what you are really interested in rather than what you think you are interested in.
Google Reader “Sort by Magic”
Google Reader’s “Sort by Magic” option can actually help you sort through the unending number of items you may have in your feed reader. This option sorts your RSS folder based on the popularity of the post and how you interact with and share news items. This can cut through the posts which are not so important and bring the more interesting ones to the top, saving you time.
These tips are just a start to cutting through information overload. Sometimes you just need to decide when you need to cut out adding new information into your brain and take a breather. The amount of information available at your fingertips at any point in time, even while mobile, is astounding. When you are feeling overloaded, its just plain good advice to power down and go for a walk!
Do you have any tricks or tips that you use to help reduce information overload? Please share in the comments below!
Image Credit: Shutterstock
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