Came across an interesting referrer in the foo’s stats today, from Touchstone.
“Are You Paying Attention?”
That’s a good question.. and whilst on the surface it appears to be yet another web 2.0 startup, they are, for a change, using the technology and concepts behind web 2.0 for good, rather than evil. And they’ve tapped into my pet hate1 — information overload.
I have too many things to track, too many RSS feeds, websites and reference points to keep track of. It grows on an almost daily basis and I have yet to be able to categorise anything, work out what I want, when I want it — or even how to filter out the ‘noise’ that invariably occurs as a result.
Touchstone is free2 and looks to be keen on providing interfaces for a growing community to hook cool shit into it - it reminds me of Yahoo’s pipes but focused more at the desktop, rather than the browser.
And really - I don’t so much want to simply aggregate incoming information, nor do I just want it filtered through some basic sort algorithim.. I want something organic, that can be taught how I think, what I like and when any chunk of information would be relevant to me. So it knows to pester the shit out of me when one of the Habari development crew posts something useful, yet let me work in peace when slashdot has yet another dupe.
In other words a smart web 2.0 powered engine that spends less time declaring (with much pomp and ceremony) just how fucking pretty and shiny and ajaxified and sexy it is and more time actually doing something, to help me organise my reading material into something other than a battle of wits with software that had it’s origins many years ago.
RSS has been around for closing on 8 years3, yet readers essentially haven’t really evolved at all - sure, ajax and similar java technologies have helped improve their functionality in the browser - but on the desktop? .. they essentially still suck at sorting content based on relevance, interests or any other useful metric.
Thus anything that can sort 120+ RSS feeds and news sources into something resembling a smart, tailored feed - has my vote.
Am I paying Attention? You bet4.
- .. which is why I’m now desperate to get into their beta (↩)
- .. again, assuming one can get into the beta (↩)
- .. yes, it really has been around for nearly a decade (↩)
- .. make that 121+ feeds and sources (↩)
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of No Tags.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Feb 13th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Hey thanks so much for the great writeup - you are the first person to understand the full meaning of our slogan. Or at least the first to comment on it.
When we came up with it Touchstone was a little-known project and we were wondering if anyone was paying attention. It also fits great with the central value proposition we’re working on - helping people pay attention to the right things!
Thanks for helping to answer the question.
Drop me and I will send you an invite!
Cheers
Chris
Feb 13th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
[quote comment=”11947″] - you are the first person to understand the full meaning of our slogan. Or at least the first to comment on it.[/quote]
It’s a fair question — and the answer is almost invariably “no”, simply due to levels of information one can receive and the lack of any tools to organise it..
I might just do that - I assume you mean ‘a line’ as apposed to being actually dropped. ;)
Feb 22nd, 2007 at 2:31 am
Im intrigued, just a shame there’s no Mac version - but I see theyre aware of the need for that already.
Maybe there can be another alert on the site which tells me when they have a Mac version available.
Feb 22nd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
matthew,
If you would like an invite, let me know. ;)
Feb 23rd, 2007 at 1:19 am
Yeah go on then please, Ill give it a try.
Feb 23rd, 2007 at 5:19 am
Done. ;)
Feb 23rd, 2007 at 5:24 am
cheers :-D Ill just have to wait for the Mac version now.
Ive got a http://tapeitofftheinternet.com/ invite if you want it.
Feb 23rd, 2007 at 5:25 am
oops, sorry i didnt realise i had posted the first comment
Feb 24th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Heh, don’t sweat it. ;)
A TIOTI invite would be cool eh? Actually, that’s not half a bad idea for a website - invatrade.com - trade your invite.. hmmm.
Feb 25th, 2007 at 6:34 am
That is a good idea.