Dudu Mimran Blog

2010 The Decade of Content Discovery

The last decade, 2000-2009, flourished with new content creation tools: blogging, tweets, videos, personal pages/profiles and many others. One thing that did not catch the speed of innovation on the content creation side is content discovery tools.

We are still mainly using Google's interface of search results to find stuff interesting. There were few tryouts for visualizing things differently but none of them prevailed. The feeling of something missing always happens to me when I try to look for some info on the web - If I dive shallow on Google then it seems like it is a topic never being discussed before but once you persist (and waste some good time on the way) things start to pop up.

The problem of content discovery lies on physical limitations of people's perception combined with the set of tools available today. Search results or category based navigation are only effective when they work on small datasets. Once the dataset grows beyond some limit they just don't help. You can see it while looking for an app on iPhone app store or when you try to catch up with tweets or news/feeds.

I propose to focus this new decade on Content Discovery:) Enough with new data, give me something to use what already exist since I do not care for more that is not "accessible" to me.

Tweet the word on Gilad Shalit

I had to do something about it. I somehow feel for Gilad like he is a little brother of mine and his situation is unbearable for me but could not do anything about it. Then I decided to start a website that will help spreading the word on Gilad in hope it might change something. I got the kind help of Doron Breuer the designer and we launched the site this week.

The main idea behind the site Free Gilad Shalit is to show updated information on him, including pictures, tweets and related headlines. Every one who follows the twitter account GiladShalitFr can get updates of the headlines as well as a daily counter of captivity.

So spread the word and start following Gilad Shalit on Twitter.

UPDATE:

We've got two widgets for website owners, a captive counter and a twitter badge. You can see them in my blog right side live.

My first days on Twitter

I had my twitter account for quite a while but never really twitted. I guess I was part of the million accounts out there, just idle. I did not find a time to blog so automatically I considered tweeting as something I won't have time for it also. Last week I started tweeting and it is very nice. I enjoy it. Same as blogging but faster, shorter and more in sync with the so many things that happen and go through your head during the day.

I was two weeks ago on a #140conf, which is Jeff Pulver's twitter and social media conference which was great (And I think is the reason I got curious enough on twitter to start tweeting). The first topic on the conf was the human needs being satisfied by Tweeting and the main theory was of loneliness and how Tweeter breaks it. I have to admit that as a new twitter with less then a 100 followers I still get lonely:) and I understand why the presenters who have more then a quarter of million followers do not feel this way.

Anyway, for now twitter is for me a way to clear up my mind of thoughts and ideas I would never pursue further and would like to garbage collect (sorry for the geeky term). A way to help someone, especially someone with a technical question on a topic I know something about, everyone are welcome to try, helping quickly with no strings attached. A way to pass time on my laptop when work is done and the only thing left is reading stuff on the web, which can be quite tiring after a while. It is a way to bookmark stuff (I have a private account for it:). A way to not feel out of social networks, since I am not a "good" user most of the time. A way to eavesdrop on others' talks, something considered not polite in the real world but most welcome on twitter. A way to write stuff without proof reading as I do now for this post.

For now I enjoy it.