Ask HN: How to Properly Address the Problem of Information Overload?

[ace_zhao]

About a day ago, I posted our product on HN for the first time, but the feedback was quite average. The problem we're trying to solve with our product is improving the efficiency of information retrieval. Based on my daily observations, I've noticed a few things:

- Many friends complain about the overwhelming amount of content online, especially tech news.

- A lot of content takes quite a bit of time to read.

- Finding the information you want often requires browsing different websites and spending a lot of time, especially when it’s content that can’t be quickly accessed through a search.

Our solution involves using AI—not only to aggregate information (which many RSS readers can do)—but to address the issue of content overload after aggregation, where many articles go unread. So, we use AI to filter the information based on natural language processing, pulling a small portion of data that meets specific criteria from many sources. We then create content digests, allowing users to read in less time, with the option to click through to the original source if they want to see the full text.

I know I must have missed something, as the HN community didn’t give much feedback on this solution. Is there a problem with the solution itself, or should I focus more on improving the way I write posts or design the landing page? I’m feeling quite lost right now.

[JohnFen]

I wouldn't normally comment on something like this because it's not the sort of application that I would use. As I am frequently reminded by others here on HN, I am not representative of the majority. But since you seem to want more input, here's mine:

The problem is a fascinating one, and one that I (like most) have struggled with for many years. That said, I won't use an external filtering service (AI-based or not) because then all I'm doing is allowing someone else to shape my informational world.

Instead, what I've done is to be more aggressive and conscious about doing that filtering myself. I severely limit the amount of attention that I pay to things that I can't affect and that I have little inherent interest in. I read my news through RSS, using an RSS aggregator that allows me to choose sources and set filters that determine what specific items what do or do not make it into my aggregated news feed. I've become extremely pleased with using Kagi for searches, in large part because I can tell Kagi what sites I want to hear less from and what sites I want to hear more from, and in part because I can actually find what I'm looking for with it.

That sort of thing. In short, to deal with information overload it's necessary to reduce the amount of information you take in, and the only person I trust to decide what is important for me to see is myself.

[ace_zhao]

It’s great to receive feedback, and I’d love to discuss a detail with you. You mentioned an "RSS aggregator that allows me to choose sources and set filters that determine what specific items do or do not make it into my aggregated news feed." This is exactly what we aim to improve, as previously there wasn't an RSS filter that could freely filter content. We believe that language is the best filter, though this has yet to be validated.

[JohnFen]

> We believe that language is the best filter

I'm very skeptical about this, honestly, but I suppose time will tell. An important aspect of this sort of tool for me is also that it's not some sort of SaaS nor makes use of any SaaS. I need to run it on my own server.

[entrepy123]

First, that is an admirable and important problem to be addressing, so kudos.

Feedback:

1- Show HN posts can be hit or miss traffic-wise, based on the time of day, if everyone was busy, etc. So, don't take small response to mean much. (Some great projects that have gone on to be strong got less initial Show HN feedback that yours.)

2- Personally, I think your landing page could benefit from a video near the top that shows how you use it. The high level concept is pretty clear, so I won't restate what you are doing here. But more visual communication (either detailed series of screenshots, or, more likely, a video) showing "how do I set this up and use the output of the product" might go a long way to letting people know what it is you have in mind to share with them. This would strengthen the "show" part of the Show HN, IMHO.

3- It's not really clear there's any proof that it works, or that the AI doesn't just do a poor job of summarizing/aggregating/etc. (which people are polarized about--some find it amazing, some find it quite poor). Does this tool achieve the stated goal? Even if we're not sure, how could the we find out for themselves? This part seems unclear, reading the page, before trying to Sign Up. So much so, that it seems kind of like a landing page to gauge interest before anything was built. Is that the case? It's honestly hard to tell. Again, to address this, show an end to end example as a 2 to 10 minute video.

4- If the first Show HN was a trial balloon, next time maybe write a Blog Post detailing more about your product, and submit that as an Article. Then keep doing that whenever there is major News to share. .02. Eventually one of your submissions might pop off.

[ace_zhao]

Thank you for your suggestion! Encouragement is really important to me. As you mentioned, we are indeed discussing adding a more intuitive introduction to our product to help the audience understand what it is.

[illuminant]

The solution to Information Overload is not AI doing digestion for you.

Absorbing higher quality, curated sources will be better for anyone than suckling off the fire hose and wondering why you feel like you've had too much. Take the breathing scratching exercise break and get back to the value add work.

All the classical solutions apply (improve your reading level, take more selective interests and know what to do when enough is enough.)

LLM is a toy. You should use it to spot check your development, your "down stream" usage sounds like you're on to something, are you? I still like to run things by my "go to" from time to time, however I cannot say it has been more than novel.

And I think this crowd sees these AI business models as a few workflow scripts and a well crafted prompt. Few may want to play with someone else's (marketed) attempt unless it really shines value.

[ace_zhao]

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I agree with much of what you've said. While creating something truly exceptional is both exciting and difficult, we're just trying to offer something useful within our capabilities. I also see your point about AI—many of today’s online services do seem like workflow scripts with well-crafted prompts. We’ll keep that in mind as we move forward.