Software For Staying Up To Date On Real Time News As It Happens

By Dan Morrill
Expert Author
Article Date: 2009-08-06

Obviously you can tell that I have been far too busy at work to do much of anything else, but what is worth talking about is just how Gist and Lazy Feed have been incorporated into my daily routine in working through the processes I have to do at work, mostly in the realm of developing course content and course context for our huge fall launch.

Lazy Feed - while I obviously have issues with systems that are simply keyword placed, they do shine when it comes to finding information that has been self reported to be under the keyword you are looking for. It is fairly simple to filter for spam, although I am still going to want to filter for a certain density of words on the page, you can quickly human filter out the spammers and other crap out of the system. As long as you are in there, you might as well check it out and see what Lazy Feed can do for you. In the longer run, it is becoming one of my filters to reduce the level of real time goodness/crap that has been hitting the airwaves lately.

Gist - this one is important, and totally important to how I am using this system to work through the day. What is interesting is how I have ended up setting this system up to cut through the general chatter of real time to focus on people who I am really interested. There are maybe a handful of people who are rated above "90%" or must read now, the majority sits around 50%, and I'll read it when I have time. Being able to filter for importance in relationship to what I do and who I have to pay attention to is really nice to see, and makes digesting data much easier. With the slider bar system, you can move things around to suit you and the time you have available to you and that is what is making Gist important to me right now, and why it is becoming a daily tool for me to use. I have a number of beta invites that I am sharing with people I work with, and their responses to questions or feedback suggestions is great. They listen when you send up something that might annoy you in the daily use of the system and fix it, today, not in a week or two. As far as beta testing a system goes, this has been one of the more productive beta tests I have been on because there is a constant dialog between the developers and the beta testers. You feel like you are part of the system and that your comments and feedback are at least listened to. That is one of the other reasons that being on the Gist beta has been so much fun, you feel like you are part of the team and are contributing value back to them.

One of the very real issues with the real time web is the tidal wave of information that you have to deal with on a routine basis. At points the brain rebels or you just need to get to the pertainant data from people you really do want to follow along the way. Using Lazy Feed to keep a tight focus on the four topics I follow professionally, and using Gist to ensure I am not missing information flows from people I really need to or want to listen to has worked out to be a great combination for cutting down on the noise level, and increasing the valuable information that I need to have to do my job. While it would be cool to see a single point system that would manage all this for me, the two tools have become indispensible to me in managing my day to day workloads, and possibly giving me enough time to actually get a cup of coffee.

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About the Author:
Dan Morrill runs Techwag, a site all about his views on social media, education, technology, and some of the more interesting things that happen on the internet. He works at CityU of Seattle as the Program Director for the Computer Science, Information Systems and Information Security educational programs.