Information Burnout - A generation of participants turning off

Mary Hodder writes:

"I'm looking for some filter to go through and just grab what I need and not have to know about or read or watch the rest, or reply to it, unless I want to and it fits in with an event or need or desire."

I'm looking forward to hear her thoughts and feedback about Particls.

I'm concerned, though, about a few people who have responded to her post (either in comments or their own blog posts) saying 'Just turn all that stuff off'.

That's exactly the scenario we are trying to avoid with Particls - a worldwide user base of social participants turning off from information burnout.

Faraday/Particls in the Top 10 Web 2.0 Companies

Over on Read/Write Web Ross Dawson has written up a list of Australia's Top 60 Web 2.0 Applications.

In the top 10 are many of our friends in the local scene including Omnidrive, Atlassian, Podcast Network, Minti, Scouta and Tangler.

Particls makes the list at number 9.

Ross is also holding a Web 2.0 event in Sydney, Australia on June 6. Unfortunately, despite being invited to speak, we can't make it. A lot of great people are going however - so check it out.

Announcement: Particls goes into Public Beta

After many months of anticipation, we are happy to announce that Particls is going Public Beta today.

For users: Particls is a filtered news reader or widget that learns what you care about and alerts you to important news and information while you work. More at www.particls.com

For bloggers and site owners: Particls allows bloggers and site owners to create a custom version of the application. Particls will share revenue with partners. More at www.particls.com/about/publishers

For developers: Particls is freely extensible by developers. Reach into corporate databases and web APIs to grab and display data in new and interesting ways. More at http://www.particls.com/extensions/

How much is it: Particls is a free download with some ads. Later, an ad-free Pro version will be available for a small subscription fee. It is free for Partners to create custom versions.

What's new in public beta: Particls is now no longer invite only. Anyone will be able to download it from the download page. Also, bloggers can now embed Particls widgets on the blog sidebars or create white label version of Particls. Learn more here.

Got a Mac: We love Mac - A Mac native version is coming. Here are some instructions to use parallels or watch the demos.

Sending feedback: The Particls team loves feedback - get int touch via: Email, Tangler, Twitter, and of course, right here in the comments

A little about Particls - for end users
The web is just too big. No one has time to keep track of all the sites, conversations and interesting bits and pieces that are out there. We each have real work to do and lives to live!

Particls helps you track your favorite sites and applications by displaying desktop alerts for important changes.

Subscribe to the sites you like best, and then when they change you're notified. Particls can even work out how important the new information is and display an alert that is proportional to its importance to you.

For example, general information might be displayed on a news ticker, important stuff might appear on a popup alert and urgent information might be SMS'd to your phone.

Think of it like a highly advanced widget or filtered feed reader.

A little about Particls - for bloggers and site owners
Through the Particls partner program, bloggers and site owners can create a custom version of Particls. They can change the skin, default feeds and default Attention Profile to give users their own branded desktop notification system.

By integrating Particls into their site, partners get more return traffic, their brand on desktops everywhere and a share of revenue.

This service is free for partners to participate in. Learn more at www.particls.com/intouch

A little about Faraday Media
Particls is owned and operated by Faraday Media. Faraday was founded by 2 'Twenty Something' Australian entrepreneurs.

Faraday Media focuses on helping users deal with information overload by creating tools that generate a highly personalized view of worldwide information and entertainment media.

The company has been in operation since July 2006 (product development started earlier in January 2006). In that time it has launched Alpha and Beta versions of Particls to over 4000 self-subscribed testers, secured Angel Funding and attracted attention from global media and financial services brands as well as high-profile technology leaders.

The company has also been an active contributor to the community founding the APML and Media 2.0 workgroups and open sourcing some of its software.

More Information

More information for bloggers can be found on the website or contact Chris Saad (Co-Founder/CEO) at chris@particls.com

Thanks
We would like to thank all those who have made it possible for us to get to this major milestone. Your generous help and advice has been always been very much appreciated.

Coverage
Coverage has already started:

Liako
Read/Write Web
Profy
Mashable
StartupSquad
The Podcast Network
Techcrunch
Techmeme
Daniela Barbosa
Daniela's awesome Video (must watch!)
Emily Chang
Cleverclogs
Interview with Chris Saad on Gizbuzz

Should We Be Afraid Of Google's Total Information Awareness?

Scott Karp asks "Should be affraid of Google's Total Information Awareness?"

I think that's the wrong question.

The question should be how can we create and support tools and standards that force open portability of our personal information so we can choose to opt out of a given service and move to another.

Attention Metrics and the Enterprise

Tim Bull takes up my post about Audient, Attent and Life Streams and asks how it can be applied to the Enterprise (Tim himself is responsible for adopting cutting edge stuff for his major enterprise employer).

He writes:

"I'm going to add to the call-to-arms from the Enterprise point of view. The ability to understand not just what people click on, but the attention they give to elements of the new, rich media world is crucial. Detailed information that goes beyond "IP Address loaded page X" and various derivatives of this is crucial."

He goes on to write:

"...I think we DO need a standard for aggregating attention data from all the different clients people use during a day, for the very simple reason that in Enterprises understanding what people are using and how they are using it is a crucial part of the delivery eco-system for information. It's the feedback loop that lets you know you're getting it right.

It may be useful for bloggers etc. as well, but I think the problem should be focused on the Enterprise as this is where the "real" need is (I show my bias here, but I don't believe I as a blogger need to know in great detail who looks at what, but as an Enterprise of 160,000 people globally I do need to understand where and how my information is flowing)."

I commented on Tim's post about Enterprise adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and philosophies. I will re-phrase and expand it here...

I agree that Enterprises would greatly benefit from the sort of tools and philosophies that are happening out here on the edge. The marketplace, however, does not make it friendly for startups to target the enterprise.

Most enterprises are wary of change. Even when they are open to trying new things, most (rightly) require many more features to make the solution work in an enterprise environment - which can be a cost that startups can't absorb straight out of the gate.

Even if a startup is willing to tackle these barriers, however, they have to invest in sales and support teams to generate adoption. After all that, most enterprises don't trust small startups and just wait for the big vendors to come with similar offerings.

Attensa and Newsgator are doing a great job fighting to create adoption in Enterprise 2.0 - but they are, by the nature of their target market, forced to be conservative in their implementations and focus on a lot of plumbing and command and control issues that bog down investment in innovation for end-users.

All that being said, however, it is clear that consumer technologies are quickly being adopted by enterprises because those technologies are usually more end-user focused.

There was nothing worse than the old CRM and ERP systems that ended up causing a lot of headaches for end-users because they focused on enterprise objectives rather than making someone's day better.

By breeding technologies in the consumer market and then adapting them to the enterprise, the result is much more user-friendly. They have to be. Because end-users don't have management telling them they have to use the given tool. In the end, enterprises are forced to adapt to the most popular tools. They are still working on getting IM support right.

Getting back to the original subject, however. I agree with Tim that forging an open standard for Audient and Attent Streams can have profound impacts for both the media and for business. It could be based on Attention.XML but it would need to encapsulate far more information than just clickstreams and form data.

Diamond in the Ruff

Ash and I were just talking about how certain songs from 20 to 30 years ago had so much passion and heart and how more recent stuff is mainly so bland and soulless - how these days it was hard to find the diamond in the ruff.

I casually commented back - maybe that's because time has been a filter. The songs that have survived those 20 to 30 years and made it to our time have outshined and outlived any of their mediocre peers.

Perhaps as the sunscreen song suggests, times were not better back then, we just have the advantage of hindsight and time has filtered the noise.

It could be said that the definition of a 'Classic' is something that receives a sustained level of Attention over (relatively) long periods of time [Ashley: Does this mean 11d old items are 'Classics'?].

And perhaps time is the best noise filter of all.

Maybe we can build a time machine into Particls.

Dangerous Moves - Google news cutting content deals?

According to Techcrunch and the rest of the Techmeme world:

"Scotland's Sunday Herald is running a story reporting that Google has secretly
reached deals with several large UK news groups to formally license content for Google News."

They go on to write

"The issue is not Google's alone. In theory any site that indexes and provides snippets of content from big media companies could easily face the same problem. Topix and Digg immediately come to mind, let alone the many smaller startups and personal sites that index news from the mainstream media."

Kevin Burton from Tailrank and Spin3r posts in the comments:

"You're wrong that Google News would face problems if they ran ads. These publishers needs Google News more than they need them.

Even if they DO run ads everyone wins. Google News only shows a small fraction of he article mandating a clickthrough . A rising tide lifts all boats.

We run a pretty deep crawl with Spinn3r (and have similar issues with ads running on Tailrank) and we've only had a few people ask to be removed.

Kevin"

Unless these deals are about expanding Google's rights beyond fair use (i.e. the right to use full content rather than just snippets), this is a dangerous move for the syndication and aggregation ecosystems who rely on fair use and opt-out mechanisms

As Duncan says on Techcrunch, this can affect all sorts of services everywhere and if Google makes these deals it could:

1. Set a precedent that could be destructive for innovation and fair use.


2. If Google makes moves to make the deals exclusive the implications could be even more significant.

This is an unsettling move that should be followed closely.

Life after pageviews: Proposing AudientStream and AttentStream

There is an ongoing discussion about the usefulness of the pageview. Scoble has once again raised the issue as well.

I'd like to make a proposal. Why can't the tools themselves - embedded players, browsers, second life clients, readers etc report back deep Attention/Engagement metrics?

First, some background...

A Lifestream
A LifeStream is an established concept and has been talked about by a number of people including Emily Chang, Stowe Boyd and others. It is an outgoing channel/record of everything you do/produce aggregated into a single feed.

Consider though, that this is actually a stream of your Attention Data. Data that represents what you have paid Attention to in the past. Some call it an Attention Stream.


In keeping with this theme, I would like to propose 2 additional concepts.

AudientStream
An AudientStream (An Audient is defined as someone who pays Attention to another) is a channel/record of everything you might need to pay Attention to in the future.

A simple example of an AudientStream might be all the RSS feeds in your OPML file aggregated together.

A more sophisticated example would be an aggregated feed of your OPML file ranked against your APML file (using something like Particls).

Unlike a Lifestream, it is a list of things you are YET to see.

Unlike just you OPML file, it might include Twitter items, email, etc.



AttentStream
This is where I think we can make an impact on the Pageviews and metrics problem.

An AttentStream (An Attent is defined as someone who receives Attention from another) is a channel/record of others paying Attention to you. This would be a stream of events (preferably attributed to people) that signify Attention given to you by another.

The AttentStream would come from the tools that people use to pay attention. Browsers, Readers, Embedded Players, the Flash Player, Adobe Reader, the SecondLife Client etc, etc. Because the tool itself does the reporting it can report more subtle information that can't be gathered on the server. Think of it like distributed analytics.

An example of an AttentStream might be if the YouTube player reported each time a video was played - how much of the video was played and by which user. This way authors can get Attention information about content they were involved in producing.

The information would not just include page impressions or views. It would include richer things like time spent, partial views etc.

Each tool might produce an RSS feed that can be aggregated together by existing or new metrics companies like Compete, Buzzlogic and Feedburner.


With an AttentStream one could do basic things like displaying the identity of your subscribers (those that grant permission) much like Twitter shows your followers.

It could also do more advanced things like going beyond the pageview to give you more information about who is spending time on your content with or without a click.

I would volunteer Particls to testbed this type of system for publishers. If the community likes the idea and we come up with a concrete implementation we will be the first to provide reports to publishers about the amount of visibility their content has received from our users who opt into providing that information.

This does not just mean just click throughs (which can already be measured with Analytics packages and Feedburner) but rather more subtle gestures like 'time spent' viewing the content via a popup alert or on the ticker. These are more subtle, yet equally important forms of Attention giving and engagement.

Join the conversation
This is just the beginning of an idea. Join the conversation and suggest some concrete implementations. Drop me a line if you are interested in helping out or join us on Tangler for real-time chat.

Update
Elias has written a follow up discussing the motivations behind collecting this sort of data. I have also responded in his comments to further clarify my thoughts.

Particls in the Wall Street Journal

Thanks to Jeremy Wagstaff who has written up a great piece about Lifestreaming, Attention and Particls Attention Management.

He writes:

"Attention plays a complex role in this new world. Google quietly makes money from the data we unconsciously give out when we do anything online. But then there are the data we consciously put out when we post photos to Flickr, add a post to our blog, or send stream-of-consciousness messages to services like Twitter. Put all this stuff together and you have an "attention stream," painting a picture of what we are paying attention to during our day."

He goes on to explain Particls' role in the Attention Economy.

"Particls (www.particls.com) looks simple enough: a downloadable ticker that runs across the top of your screen, pumping you information. Nothing new about this; the difference lies in what information it presents, and how it appears. Instead of shoveling data at you, Particls tries to figure out what you're paying attention to."

Thanks for your intense curiosity in researching this story Jeremy and the great review of Particls.

Head on over to the WSJ site and read the full thing.

Rupert Murdoch on Media 2.0 "Media companies don't control the conversation anymore"

There is a statement from Rupert Murdoch about his impressions of Media 2.0. Let me comment between his comments (found here via Particls).

Special Report
Mixed Media
Rupert Murdoch 05.07.07

Traditional companies are feeling threatened. I say, bring on the changes.

Rather than adapt his traditional businesses, though, he seems anxious to buy himself out of the paradigm change (with acquisitions like myspace). Maybe this will work - maybe it wont.

Everyone knows that networking--once a face-to-face affair, sometimes captured in a Rolodex--is now worldwide, instant, and impervious to constraints of distance, time or cost.

However he has not recognized yet that Networking can not be contained within a walled garden. Myspace can continue to block widgets and architect its site to generate as many page views as possible - but in the end, open and transparent platforms that play nice will win.

Those of us in so-called old media have also learned the hard way what this new meaning of networking spells for our businesses. Media companies don't control the conversation anymore, at least not to the extent that we once did. The big hits of the past were often, if not exactly flukes, then at least the beneficiaries of limited options. Of course a film is going to be a success if it's the only movie available on a Saturday night. Similarly, when three networks divided up a nation of 200 million, life was a lot easier for television executives. And not so very long ago most of the daily newspapers that survived the age of consolidation could count themselves blessed with monopolies in their home cities.

He's using the right rhetoric here - "Big media does not control the conversation anymore". He alludes to the limited choice of the past vs. the hyperchoice of today and tomorrow. How will people make choices amongst this information overload?

All that has changed. Options abound. Fans of small niches can now find new content they could never before. Going elsewhere for news and entertainment is easier and cheaper than ever. And people's expectations of media have undergone a revolution. They are no longer content to be a passive audience; they insist on being participants, on creating their own material and finding others who will want to read, listen and watch.

He knows the language well - does he know its meaning? Participants don't just know what they want to read, listen and watch - they know they are not a commodity to be traded and disrespected. Just look at the recent Digg fiasco with the hex code. They brought that platform to its knees because they perceived that 'the man' had violated their rights.

The point is not that it's easy to find content elsewhere - to change the channel so to speak - but rather that its actually imperative that users have the ability to mix-and-match content. To personalize their experience. This doesn't mean adding a background to my myspace page - it means using the widgets and content I want on my social networking page, and having the right to share and remix content from Fox.

Participation is not sending in emails and changing background images - it's controlling the medium as well as the message.

Consequently the old media are threatened by the erosion of our traditional profit centers. Certainly we can't count on things like print classified advertising being around forever. Similarly, DVRs undermine the mainstay of broadcast television's business model: the commercial.

Nonetheless, it would be wrong to conclude from this that the age of content is over. On the contrary, people want content more than ever, and there is a role for companies that can provide good stuff--"good" being the operative word. Quality is more important than ever, because the marketplace is more ruthlessly competitive. Options are not merely one click of the remote away; devices undreamed of a few short decades ago are at least as tempting as a change of the channel.

Good content will always been desired and consumed. That doesn't mean we are willing to watch it on your schedule, or even in your container. It doesn't mean we don't want to remix it and share it on our own terms and on our own social networks - networks you don't own.

But what he misses here is that 'Good' is not the only criteria for consumption any more. Good was the way you stood out in the movieplex. Good is no longer good enough. What we need now is relevant - Personally Relevant.

While there will always be the blockbuster - the thing we all talk about around the water cooler (or on the social networks), the next big shift will be getting access to the personal stuff.

A video shot by my daughter on her mobile phone is not 'good' - at least not by Mr Murdoch's standards. It is grainy, low resolution and has 0 production values. But it is Personally Relevant.

Old media can survive--and thrive--in this new environment, but they must adapt. We must learn how younger generations of consumers prefer to receive their news and entertainment, and we must meet those expectations.

The good news is that we are learning--and fast. Take the type of media I know best--news. News is in more demand than ever, but the vast network of Internet-savvy news junkies want their news with several fresh twists: constantly updated, relevant to their daily lives, complete with commentary and analysis, and presented in a way that allows them to interact not just with the news but with each other about the news. They won't wait until six o'clock to watch the news on television or until the next morning to read it in isolation. This plainly provides a challenge for news providers but also an opportunity to be far more engaged with the audience.

He's right about all that. But he still seems to think that he can control all these distribution platforms. He still dreams of vertically integrated media production, distribution and monetization models where Fox owns the content, the platform and maybe even the device. Then they own your eyeballs as well.

Companies that take advantage of this new meaning of network and adapt to the expectations of the networked consumer can look forward to a new golden age of media. Far be it from me to suggest that either I or my company have all the answers. No one does. But the future of media is a future of relentless experimentation and innovation, accelerating change, and--for those who embrace the new ways in which consumers are connecting with each other--enormous potential.

Rupert Murdoch is chairman of News Corp.

As long as he remembers that the definition of 'Network' is 'The Internet' - the network of networks. Not the Fox Network.

I have singled Rupert Murdoch out here - only because he has had the vision to engage the issues, so I had his comments to pick on. I actually applaud him for joining the 'conversation'. At least he knows one is going on.

Where are the others guys?

Running out of RSS to subscribe to? Amazon has the answer

Amazon has broadened it's support for RSS. Even more stuff to subscribe to via Particls :)

I think it's time for a SubscriptionPlugin.

Thanks Amazon!

Update:
Paul saw my post and made an Amazon SubscriptionPlugin in a few seconds. Download it, unzip it and put it in your "[Particls installation folder]\SubscriptionPlugins" directory!

We will have to make the installation process easier for these - perhaps register a file type for the browser to recognize and route.

Extending the conversation - From Fishbowl to Mainstream

Chris Brogan has a great post about reaching beyond our fishbowl to the mainstream. He writes:

I’m still convinced that we’re in a complete and utter fishbowl.

This might not be bad.

I think the trick is this: we’re VERY much where the old web world was, when people were logging on, creating Geocities accounts, and trying to learn how to change the background from olive to yellow. I think blogging is getting much closer to mainstream, especially as almost all the mainstream media outlets have succumbed and built their own blogs. This, by extension, gives us even more of a chance to make a difference and build our own blogs into something of quality.

Two of his points are 'Gather' and 'Outreach'. This is effectively what we are doing with the Media 2.0 Workgroup. If you are part of a Media 2.0 entity trying to reach out or a mainstream entity trying to reach in - let us know.

Another important aspect, of course, is to build products and message your marketing for audiences that don't know what RSS and Tagging is - much less appreciate the aesthetic qualities of rounded corners and gradients.

By the time the people in the center get to the edge, however, we will all be onto the next frontier. But that's ok of course.

Google needs notification

This is a great list of improvements to make Google Apps better.

Each section seems to have 'notification' listed in one form or another. Lucky there is Particls.

Mix 07 Ray Ozzie Keynote - Winforms apps are dead

The Mix07 Keynote by Ray Ozzie was incredibility interesting for those of us in the software development community. Here are the highlights - some of which you may not have heard said in these explicit terms.

• Silverlight now enables the development of complete XAML based applications in a browser - they can be just as powerful as if they were installed on the target device - and they are lightweight enough to deliver over the network - on both Mac AND Windows.
  
  
• Those same applications can be packaged to run on the target device and outside the browser (both PC and Mobile Devices). In addition, the same tools and assets can be used to develop server-side business logic (web services etc).
  
  
• So this means you can use the same languages and tools to create technology that runs anywhere in the ecosystem.
  
  
• You can now make rich vector based (flash style) applications using dynamic languages AND object orientated programming - making Flash/Apollo and vanilla AJAX look like child's play.
  
  
• Just because they are child's play does not mean they are dead. People have used, and will continue to use, 'Good enough' solutions for many reasons.
  
  
• 95% of desktop apps (and scenarios that justify building winforms/desktop apps) will therefore die over time EXCEPT apps that require outside the browser notification or compact/persistent presentation. This excludes the browser itself of course.
  
  As shown by Apollo you can now build Photoshop as a web-based app - imagine what Microsoft is doing with Silverlight (Let me help you out - Office Online).
  
  
• Many of the demos shown are about creating customized players for streaming video. Do users want highly immersive media players that change from vendor to vendor? Or do they want a Joost that has a consistent user interface with plenty of cross-network functionality? The MLB.com demo for example, basically showed a Joost style user experience for a single site.
  
  Some scenarios might support it - but most users would prefer to be able to surf from provider to provider while keeping the same User Experience.
  

This increases the opportunity for 'Internet Operating System' infrastructure plays such as storage, contacts and, of course, a universal, personalized incoming events and notification pipeline.

Update:

Other coverage is on Techmeme

Robert Scoble writes:

"Jeff Prosise, co-founder of Wintellect. He told me that yesterday will be remembered as the day Microsoft rebooted the Web. Hyperbole? Maybe, but don't miss why he's excited: he's going to be able to take his .NET skills and make Web experiences that are going to be far beyond what you can do with HTML and AJAX."

He also writes

"Is it enough yet to say that Microsoft has an internet strategy? Not quite."

I think he's wrong there. They are just not spelling it out for us. The strategy is to reshape the Internet in their image. You know that emerging Internet operating system everyone is talking about? Well it will look like Minority Report. Just watch their intro graphics with people standing around touching holograms. And it will all be running on XAML and .NET.

These are the first pieces of the platform that will make Google Docs look like the shadow of an office suite that it is.