Where We See the World Going

“We gon win, you can take the lose or draw”
- Mac Miller, Donald Trump

Yes, we just copied how Ben Horowitz starts off his blog posts but I like it and this is what I’m listening to right now.

Before we go on, I promised a picture of our new digs for the summer so here it is:

Thanks to Steve Kuyan and the Varick Street Incubator for helping us out with space for 5.5 people (hey Katie!).

So, where do we at Skim.Me see the digital world headed? In short, we’re headed for an info train wreck. Realistically, we’re already there. Digital information is now a constant stream of water out the hose. You either control it, it controls you, or some constant struggle in between. For some, maybe you just don’t care but you’re the shrinking minority.

Brian Solis wrote an interesting piece last month titled, “The Fallacy of Information Overload.“ In it, he describes information overload – not as a disease itself – but as a symptom of overconsumption and an inability to find ways or tools to refine one’s online experiences. While his focus is on social media itself, the research and insights certainly extrapolate to the larger space of all online activities. Then, when taken as a whole outside just social media, the anxiety, feelings of being overwhelmed, and loss of control are obviously more acute.

So how will you refine your online experiences that now encompass experiences on your computer, tablet, phone, and soon to be TV (among many other things in the future)? The status quo experience is pretty broken for a lot of us but we just deal with it because there’s no perceived better way. There have been some tools that have taken a shot: RSS, start pages, dashboards, notification centers, readers, magazines, newsletters. These tools have been hard-pressed to gain popularity with the mainstream non-tech junkies, mostly because they aren’t simple and take a lot of time to setup, manage, and monitor. The benefits to doing so aren’t clear to the casual user.

What’s more intriguing is that most of the previous tools haven’t concentrated on what’s at the center of all this perceived information overload and overconsumption: negative emotions & feelings. They’ve been focused on the information itself: how to filter it, how to present it, how to make it look pretty. These are certainly relevant things to focus on, but in our eyes focusing on these things exclusively will never produce a perfect solution largely because interests and what people find important are constantly changing. Once you find a way or tool to refine your experience then you find something new or forget something.

We at Skim.Me have studied what’s been done in the past to see what’s worked and what hasn’t. We’ve just written a little about where we see the world going. We have a few other hypotheses on the future that have come together in our imaginations to conceive a product whose filtering AND personality help reduce the negative emotions associated with keeping up. We’ve combined a popular productivity tool with our unique algorithms to give the user an experience and interface that will change her online experience for the better. We can’t wait to show the first version to you!