The paradox of mitigating blog overload is the abundance of information one finds to read on the subject ...
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Taming information overload to get the most out of blogs
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology - July 13, 2007
by Chip Griffin | Mass High Tech
bizjournals.com
The blogosphere offers tremendous benefits to high-tech entrepreneurs, but how does one extract valuable intelligence from the flood of information out there? With more than 70 million blogs and hundreds of thousands of new posts every day -- many of them on tech topics -- the challenge is daunting. But rather than being caught up in the flood and carried away downstream, savvy entrepreneurs can seek higher ground to survey their surroundings.
My first stop each day in my effort to tame information overload is a site called TechMeme. Founded by a gentleman named Gabe Rivera, this site aggregates interesting tech topics using proprietary artificial intelligence that he crafted. It examines the linking activity of tech bloggers in order to create a snapshot of the most-discussed topics of the day. It is well-organized and includes not only the news stories and blog posts receiving the most attention, but also a sampling of the discussion taking place around those links.
Of course, there's more to the blogs than the top stories. Just as few people would read just the front page of a newspaper, so too should you be prepared to dig a little deeper -- or let someone else do it for you. To complement the computer automation that generates Page 1 of the tech blogosphere (TechMeme), find a good curator to help point you in the direction of interesting topics of discussion.
What's a "curator" exactly? Massachusetts entrepreneur Chris Brogan uses the term to describe people who read lots of blogs and share links -- through what's known as a "link blog" or "shared links." As the co-founder of PodCamp, the leading "unconference" focused on podcasting, Chris serves as a curator for topics related to community-building online.
Perhaps the best known curator of all is Robert Scoble, one of the earliest and most popular tech bloggers. Scoble used to be the online face of Microsoft Corp. until he left last year to join a video-podcasting startup called PodTech. He recently posted some statistics about his curating when he included numbers from Google Reader on his blog: "From your 684 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 32,879 items, and shared 1,693 items."
When people like Robert and Chris spend so much time combing through news to share the best with you, it's a great time-saver. Even if their particular interests aren't close enough to yours to effectively serve as your curator, just check out the web sites of your favorite bloggers and see if they share the links they find interesting.
Once you find your curator, add one more bit of automation to the mix. Use a free search service like Technorati or Google Blog Search to send you daily alerts with blog posts that match search criteria you specify. Play with it a little bit to get the right volume by narrowing or expanding your keywords. This will help you find topics relevant to your company or industry without having to hunt for them. You can even use Technorati to limit your search by "authority" so you only get stuff from prominent blogs, which can be helpful if your search topic is broad.
Unfortunately, even with aggregators and curators, you will still want to do some of your own legwork. Find a dozen or so blogs related to your industry that you find regularly produce compelling content that you find valuable. Put these in your RSS reader (you are using one aren't you? If not, jump on that bandwagon -- it will save you time) and segregate them in a folder labeled "must read" or "read first." No matter what else you have to read, make sure you go through these at the start of each day. You may not have time to read every feed you find interesting, but make sure you set aside time to read these key feeds, just like you probably find time to read the sports or funnies each morning.
If you follow these four simple steps, I can't guarantee you'll be smarter, but you should be able to pack a ton of intelligence gathering into less than 30 minutes every day.
Chip Griffin is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who serves as the CEO of CustomScoop, a media intelligence company based in Concord, N.H. He can be reached at chipgriffin@gmail.com.
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