In a way, this is kind of a follow up to my last post. 

Alexander Van Elsas makes a what is sadly a very ironic post in regards to the noise being generated by the Web 2.0 world and how he can't keep up with it.  What makes it ironic is that the post itself is a rambling 1,550 words (a little over 2.5 pages). 

Now, before I get to my point I've paraphrased his post below.  I encourage you to read the paraphrased version, and then go and read the original.  What you'll find is that the insight shared is exactly the same.  Here's the (paraphrased) quote...

Social media allow us to interact over content, anywhere, anytime. And we love it. Interaction is what makes web 2.0 valuable. While typical users are just catching on to this trend early adopters often use 5-25 of these web 2.0 services.

One such service, FriendFeed, is becoming a favorite among early adopters. It allows users to share content via RSS feeds and then allows those users to comment on each item. Friendfeed then attempts to (re-)orgainze that content to allow you to find interesting items from those you follow.

While I can see why people enjoy FriendFeed for it’s engagement, better discussions and better content I find the discussion tends to stray (especially when people who haven’t read the original item get involved). There are other services that allow you to share all kinds of things, from Travel Plans to Multimedia, but while that’s addictive it can also be overwhelming. I’m not alone in this, search for “noise” or “echo” on Friendfeed and you’ll find many people dealing with the same problem.

As a side step this overwhelming amount of content makes it really hard for good content to stand out which leads blogs to post sensationalist stories (with accompanying headlines) in an attempt to get attention. This is where Social Media is quickly hitting our human limitations in that there is only so much content we can swallow.

One of the main weaknesses of most aggregators in my opinion is that there is too much unintentional sharing. We don’t just share things we find really important, we share anything. And worse, we don’t share by sending each other something specific (intentionally), but we share RSS feeds making the act of sharing unintentional (or maybe unconscious). As a result the stuff I might be really interested in gets buried under a whole lot of unintentional, unfocused and mostly uninteresting content. This exact same pattern developed in e-mail which started with a few intentional mails directed specifically at individuals and ended up with people CC-ing everyone (which made mail box rules a reality).

We need trust filters, noise detectors, blockers, friend feeds and rankings, all kinds of technical solutions to stop all that useless content obscuring the good stuff from us. But we are ignoring the fact that the underlying principle of sharing is the cause of all this. By using RSS which as a technology is truly great as a sharing mechanism, we also accept that we get endless streams of unintentionally shared content.

1. I see everything as a river of content. It passes by all day long, and whenever i feel like it I dive in. I spent limited time in this social media river and am not concerned what I miss when I get out again. the river doesn’t dry up, there is always something else to be found
2. I try not to share too much, only the things I myself really find valuable (this is always hard to do)
3. I actually read long blog posts and try to provide my thoughts if I feel I can contribute. I haven’t visited sites like TechCrunch in ages. I’m not interested in any post that has a title of “breaking news” as much as the impact it has on me and others. That’s why I follow people like Rolf Skyberg, Steven Hodson, Chris Anderson, Kevin Kelley, Chris Messina, Zephoria, Jonathan Harris and many more like those (sorry guys, can’t fit you all in here).
4. I don’t comment or like endless streams of content (sorry guys). It’s not that I don’t like many things, but I do feel that I need to be reluctant to join in every discussion. I have an opinion about many things, but I’m by no means an expert on them. Instead of adding more noise to the river, I try to interact in those places where I feel I can contribute.
5. I write long blog posts myself. Maybe it ads noise too, but my intention is to contribute where I feel I can. I read great stuff from others, so I feel I need to pay back by presenting my thoughts.
6. I try not to share too much, only the things I myself really find valuable (this is always hard to do)

This is how I deal with my human limitations in social media. How do you deal with it?

I honestly think the above is still overly long but to make the point I had to include every one of his points (even if they seemed unrelated to other points in the piece).  To hammer the point home, here's a graphic to show just how much I managed to cut off his original post. 

My point here is a pretty simple one, the problem with content overload is in large part due to the content creators having no respect for the reader's time.  Be that in the form of making a repetitive comment, tweeting every little whim that enters your head or rambling on for 3 pages when you only have about a page worth of actual thoughts the end result is the same.  People are overwhelmed by the number of words while getting very little actual content. 

Let me be clear, I'm not saying anyone should stop themselves from saying something they need to say.  Just that they should say it in the most concise way possible so that it has a better chance of being read.

Scott Karp posted a real "eye roller" of a post today suggesting that the problem of too much noise on the web should be solved by people not posting as much.  Here's the quote from his article called "Join The Web Content Conservation Movement"...

On the web, everyone can publish — which means we have more content than all the people consuming content on the web can possibly consume.

How did we deal with excesses from technology that damaged the environment? By starting a conservation movement. Remember those stickers encouraging you to turn out the lights?

So why not start a conservation movement on the web?

Next time you’re about to post something to your blog, or Twitter, or Flickr, or YouTube, or any of the 1,000 other publishing platforms, ask yourself this — does this really add value to the web? Or am I publishing just because I can?

That logic leads him to these conclusions

• Filtering the web instead of adding to the content noise works well for Google’s business
• Links are cheaper to produce
• Linking is a way for media companies to show their environmental responsibility on the web

I barely know where to begin here.

First, just because everyone CAN produce content does not mean everyone WILL produce content.  In fact, as any one who has ever run a blog or message board will tell you the majority of visitors prefer not to comment.  So making the jump that there will always be more content than people can possibly consume is kind of silly.

Second, who is to say that every piece of information doesn't add value to the web.  I've read tons of stories where people connect with an old friend via twitter and are elated to know the mundane details of that person's life.  So does that long lost friend's tweet about where he ate lunch add value to the web?  To at least one person it does.  So comparing that content to pollution is a flawed comparison because pollution isn't good for anyone where as random tweets always add value for someone.

Third, advising people to "link instead of write" isn't advice that anyone can realistically follow.   Professional sites like TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb cover the same content but they also have unique readers who they can't just hand over to a competitors site.  A link is not cheaper to produce if it costs you a reader and that's exactly what each site would be risking if they simply stopped covering some stories.  Even if they didn't lose readers they'd be giving up ad revenue by losing half their page views. 

Finally, I strongly object to the idea that not posting on a story makes media companies "environmentally responsible"  I'm sorry but there aren't that many people who care that different news sites cover the same story.  In fact, if a news site chose to just link to another site's coverage I'd probably think less of them not more.  Their job is to cover the news not act as a aggregator. 

I don't want ReadWriteWeb or TechCrunch trying to be Google because I already have Google for that.  I want them out there covering the story and preserving my right to choose which coverage I decide to read.  It isn't their job to solve your information overload problem.