Solutions for Digital Information Overload

Modes of Regulation: Markets, Social Norms, Code, and Law

The possible solutions fall into the four categories of Lawrence Lessig's modes of regulation: markets, social norms, code, and law. (From Urs' essay draft)

Markets

• Reputation systems
• Quality labels, trustmarks

Social Norms

• Codes of conduct for bloggers, transparency
• Policies and guidelines at Wikipedia, Netiquette

Law

• Disclosure standards in health regulation (quality standards, procedural requirements, etc.)
• Truth-in-advertising regulation
• Right to correct wrong information

Code

• Rating, filtering (ICRA, content advisor)
• Meta-data: tagging as a collaborative way to organize information according to folksonomies, (i.e. emergent grassroots taxonomies), see, e.g., Weinberger: Why Tagging Matters
• Specialized software to find content on hard drives, see Metz, PCMag: Conquer Information Overload (2003) (example of Jim Crowe, promoter at Atlantic records)
• Syndication, content aggregators, see Bradbury, FT: Might RSS Help To Solve Your Web Mess?

Behavior/Learning (training the dot in the middle)

• Accelerated learning techniques to improve speed and comprehension, e.g. speed reading, see Fifield, FT: Cut through acres of type to the fast lane (2004)

Miscellaneous ideas:

Can increased collaboration aka Web 2.0 be interpreted as a response to information overload? If passive consumption becomes increasingly difficult and partly even unfeasible in view of an ever more diverse and abundant information environment, then web 2.0 strategies like tagging, remixing, mash-ups, and shared bookmarks can be regarded as essential tools to autonomously structure one's information environment. This reveals an interesting paradox of today's Internet: the very technologies we see at the heart of the information overload problem simultaneously provide us with the tools to combat it.

What is the process of news and information gathering?

1. grazing
2. deep dive
3. feedback loop