Staying informed through the internet seems like a great idea in theory. Nearly unlimited news sources, on whatever topic you can think of. Delivered instantly. Mostly free of charge.
But the abundance of news is also overwhelming. Filtering on scope, ascertaining biases, and keeping consumption to a reasonable level takes massive effort.
You would think technology can help us fix these problems. I’d love a tool that allows me to customize how much and what type of news I receive.
Here are some features that matter to me:
- A way to designate my filters. The standard news categories is a start (i.e. world, business, sports, lifestyle) but choosing my own keywords would be even better. Another possibility: maybe AI that could learn what I like based on what articles I clicked or flagged?
- The tool would have the ability aggregate from different news sources, with the option to include or exclude sources.
- I like distraction-free reading, which means no ads or extraneous links tempting me to click on them. Currently I use RSS and Instapaper to serve this purpose.
- The ability to control content volume. For example, could I choose to receive the top 10 most popular news articles of the week outside the U.S? Or, if I could read one article on technology today that my friends found interesting, what would it be?
I don’t know of any tool that allows news consumption like this now, but if it doesn’t exist already I’m sure it will soon. I can’t wait.