Tuning Out the Noise

We have said many times that Touchstone is not an RSS Reader.

Just to quickly recap this is because Touchstone gives you alerts and updates in a heads-up-display - a format that you can track while you work on other things (as opposed to a RSS readers that you can use to focus on and consume large amounts of news).

It is designed to be used as a companion - not just for RSS, but any data source that you want to track.

But we also say something else about Touchstone - that it will live or die not by the items it displays - but rather by the items that it suppresses. Touchstone is not just an alerts platform - it is also an Attention Manager.

What does this mean? It means that just because one of the sources you subscribe to has new information doesn't mean you care about that information - or care enough to have your concentration (or 'attention') interrupted.

So in many ways Touchstone's Attention Management features make it less about being alerted than actually tuning out the interruptions in your life.

Maybe if you think about it that way, Touchstone is less about showing you information than it is about hiding information you don't actually care about while you work - so that you can focus on what really matters.