Future of Content Distribution, Discovery & Consumption | Hacker News Reader

Future of Content Distribution, Discovery & Consumption

timchae.com

14 pointstchae6 comments

In the next few years, websites will no longer have same messages and content for everyone, but rather completely personalized in terms of the content (and even layout and design) served completely through implicit personalization powering implicit discovery based on what I like and prefer.

Not being a rich man, I'd put down $100 on a carefully worded bet that this is not broadly true at the end of 2016.

My experience is that, broadly speaking, people are relying upon strong editorial brands and direction more than ever, rather than automated curation and personalization. Many of these brands are social or curation-based (Gruber, Techmeme, the swell of e-mail newsletters, Hacker News even) but full on personalization has failed (and, IMHO, will continue to fail) to take off at the publication level.

It's not as if we've lacked for algorithms, news sources, or the technology to do this, and both companies and people have kept coming along with the personalization promise. While it appeals to my geekier side, I'm starting to think these promises are just sales pitches from people with algorithms to sell rather than a solid grip on both the media and what readers actually want.

Like RSS, a certain audience - mostly the more technically inclined - will stick with it, but I don't see a big swing into all-personalization-all-the-time working out long term in the mass market. But now I've said it out loud, I'm prepared to be linked back to this in several years when I'm proven wrong ;-)

Agreed. In addition to what you've said, too much personalization means too little agency for the user. I wrote a blog post on this a couple of days ago: http://www.ritc.io/you-are-not-the-query/

Hm, this article didn't resonate very much with me.

"Currently, Facebook is the only company in the world with enough direct social graph data to create the most perfect form (at least comparatively) of implicit personalization. That’s what Facebook is – a platform for current evolution phase of content discovery and consumption. Do this for me: Go to any major publisher site (The New York Times, Huffington Post, or for sports fans, ESPN) and take a look at it for a bit."

Frankly I don't go to Facebook to get news, I go there to see what my friends and family are up to. They may share news articles they think are interesting, but often that doesn't coincide with what I'm into, which is ok.

I actually don't go to a publisher site. I prefer curated aggregation: techmeme & hacker news for tech news, memeorandum and google news for political news, longform.org, longreads.com and thebrowser.com for longer more thoughtful articles, and finally google reader for photography related sites. My friends are horrible curators... is that just me? Or do people really get all their news from their FB friends?

Facebook's social graph data is the closest digital form replication of our offline true social graph. Our true social graph is what affects every single innate decision and action we make and take, as well as structuring the way we are influenced.

While Facebook isn't a "news" platform, it is, however, a platform in its beginning stages (albeit, highly advanced) that shows you "content" that is most relevant to you - through the usage of the replicated social graph.

And you're right, I wouldn't ever go to state that "curated content" (if done right) will leave anytime soon, but the implicit personalization of everything on the web will become reality and nothing will nor should be static content.

"Our true social graph is what affects every single innate decision and action we make and take, as well as structuring the way we are influenced."

This simply isn't true. If I decide not to go to the beach because it rained, I just based my decision on something that has zero to do with my "true social graph."

I think this might actually be where your deeper mistake in reasoning is - the assertion that relevancy is based solely on your social graph. The fact that this is NOT so is exactly why Facebook does NOT show me content that is most relevant to me - it simply shows me content that was shared or created by my friends and family. That in and of itself doesn't make it relevant to me. It simply means: "hey here is a piece of content and you happen to know the makers of or someone who likes it."

The tricky part is determining what relevancy really means. I think this changes in different contexts.

And finally, I also simply cannot agree with this statement as it stands: "implicit personalization of everything on the web will become reality and nothing will nor should be static content." I really do hope that the latest New York Times article on the conflict in Mali is the same text regardless of whether you are I read it - i.e. that it's static and doesn't change.

I think reality is a bit more nuanced than what sweeping statements allow for.

Yeah, I didn't do a great job conveying my perspective on what makes the true social graph. I don't believe social graph is just people. It's literally everything around you. Everything from TV show or broadcast you're watching or news you're hearing to even the environment and setting around us which is the weather.

Everything in life is connected - and that's the graph.

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