‘A Goddamned Sea of Notifications’

Michael Lopp:

The problem with notifications is that the cost to create them is close to zero — just hit that Like button or go ahead and click that retweet button. As their creation cost approaches zero, notifications rapidly become spam-like as the noise of their quantity masks the quality of their signal. But we learned our lesson with spam. We knew what happened when we lost control of our inboxes and spent our time sorting through the useless noise searching for the signal. We learned how to curate. Curation is social-media-douche-speak for “deliberately choosing and pruning the content you care about” and I think part of the next Internet is curation at scale thanks to notifications.

While I’ve talked about my issue with notifications, I haven’t discussed the flip side of it — being part of the problem.

The reality is that I am the cause of notifications for many people. Between this website, my Twitter account and emails, I’m pushing content out every day. Publishing is a mighty power. And one that can be welded easier than ever with things like Twitter, WordPress and Facebook. Curating[1. I have come to hate this word when used on the Internet. Most people don’t really live up to the demands of what it really should mean.] is key, not only in choosing what to read — as Lopp discusses — but in choosing what to write.

In a world full of content and notifications, I want what I create to be worthwhile and meaningful. I don’t want to be just another badge that my readers have to click through to get to what they want.

It’s the reason I tweet less than I did a year ago. It’s why I stopped using Tumblr. It is one of the reasons that I write less about technology news here on Forkbombr. It’s why I am so humbled every time someone new reads this site.

I really hope I’m not creating anxiety for anyone out there.