Summary

There's a lot of Internet out there, and I'm paralyzing myself with how much of it I'm trying to consume.  I also feel like I'm allocating a large amount of attention to being "in the know," but not getting much value out of my time other than becoming a socialite.  I'm addressing these issues by participating in mailing lists rather than consuming RSS feeds, and collecting links and ideas on topics I'm interested in rather than streaming them out into the ether of my tumblelog.

RSS

• I used to read thousands of RSS items per day, now I'm lucky if I can keep up with TechCrunch and ICHC
• I use Outlook as a feed manager, which further supports the "must read everything" paradigm
• For me, RSS is very uni-directional.  I consume, I learn, I share discussions with Dave, but I don't feel like I'm getting enough value for my time.
  • Trying to keep track of too much. 
  • Organizing topics I am interested in via wiki rather than keeping them locked up as a saved item in Outlook. 
    • I often don't feel I have enough commentary to compose a full blog post, but there is value in sharing the collection of links and commentary I find important.  Kinda like tumblelogging without the tumble part.
    • Also, should be pretty obvious that I love thinking in bullet points
• Goal:  be less of a passive consumer
  • Yes, you can comment on the blog posts that RSS feeds are sending me, but I rarely do.  Why?
  • Participate more in mailing lists to get my ideas known in the communities I care about, rather than consume the end results of those discussions.
  • Will mean a drastic reduction of what I can at least stay abreast of
    • Boing Boing and Lifehacker are just too high volume.  But Dave still reads LH every day and can tell me what I'd be interested in (or refer topics as necessary).
      • If there's not already a term for this, there needs to be
  • Spend more time on topics I can contribue to, rather than just learn from

Twitter

• Designed as a two-way (or n-way?) communication method
• TODO:  So much more will go here...need to pull out notes from moleskine

Problems I'm having with lifestreaming

• More valuable content gets lost in the noise
  • No longer showing twitter messages on the front page of my blog (4/9/08)
  • Created separate nav link for blog posts (4/13/08)
• Duplication of messages
  • Most of my blog traffic comes from twitter, and users were getting pages of twitter messages same as where they just came from.  The style I was using works great if you publish lots of varied kinds of content, but I stay so behind that I gotta find a different way to approach publishing.
  • RSS feed is lame for people who already follow me on twitter and flickr (which is probably 90% of my content)
  • Other people even populate their facebook status with their last twitter message. 
    • I love that Digsby shows me the status updates, but I have to turn this feature off since it's 99% duplicate noise
      • Contacted Digsby on 4/8/08 to request blocking fb statuses that start with "is twittering"
  • Alert Thingy by FriendFeed is a good concept, but mainly just annoys me
• Overwhelming amount of content for users to absorb
  • I publish several different RSS feeds for blog only, tumblelog only, everything but twitter, etc to help users manage just how much they want to know about me

Information overload

• http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/05/26/information-overload-and-the-food-is-thought-metaphor/
• Will always-on gadgets change how we think about knowledge?  http://techdirt.com/articles/20080621/1244491469.shtml
• R U really reading?  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&ref=education

  Some scientists worry that the fractured experience typical of the Internet could rob developing readers of crucial skills. “Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode,

   

Social mixer burnout

• I'm tired of wasting my time on empty content meetings
• In spite of all my best efforts, I'm just not all that good at "mixers" anyway
• Learning events still have pre/post chatter!
• Want to spend time with groups with a more narrow focus than this whole "Web 2.0" thing
  • Such as the workgroups I join regarding the whole RSS to mailing list migration discussed above
• Although not a popular view, this phenomenon is being noticed across much of socal.  Should I take a stand about this or just do what I feel is right and hope I'm leading by example?
  • 3/4/08 - Heather Vescent and the whole unBarcampLA debacle
    • "There are too many cooks in the kitchen and I don't like the cooks or what is getting cooked up. I wonder, is it too hot for me to handle? Can I stand the pressure? Why not just bulldog my way through? If I had the passion and drive, yes, but the passion is gone."
  • 3/28/08 - Sarah Carr's comments regarding the Microformats meetup announcement at the 2008 Web App Summit "That sounds kinda nerdy.  Wouldn't you rather go to a party?"  Note:  This quote was not heard firsthand and is likely paraphrased.  Good thing this ain't Wikipedia.
    • This blog post still makes an important point:
      • "Whether 2.0 is filtered through happy hours, lunches, dinners, parties - who gives an F if we use the 2.0 term as association?  Let me put it this way; if I announced a Web Meetup versus a Party 2.0 - which would you prefer to attend?  Knowing what you know about 2.0 - the community aspect, the hard-work and focus, the way we do business through cutting edge design and development.  I see no contender against 2.0."
    • This is also why you'll see me refer to every gathering of people who have ever seen the Internet as a "Party 2.0"
      • @feather and microformats 2.0 and karaoke 2.0 at lamplighter 2.0
      • Screenshot from SDWS:  It's a party 2.0!
      • Madrox and the TC+PS party
  • 4/14/08 - Jason Cosper respons to the TC+PS party, plz2keep ur dramas in the valley, kthx