Twitter almost solves the biggest baddest puzzle of our time. But its not there yet. Twission shows us one way to go about solving that puzzle.

So what is the biggest baddest puzzle of our time. In short, too much of a good thing.  

Information overload. We live in an age where we are easily overwhelmed by the constant flood of high value information.

Information makes you smarter. Until it becomes overwhelming. Then it makes you dumb.  

Drinking from the firehose is not the best way to quench a thirst.

 

1.  So how can we cope? Well, Twitter helps a lot. It delivers the first part of the solution. It enforces brevity. And that's good.

2.  It also deliver the second part of the solution: Finding what is relevant to you. By using friends as filters.  

3.  The third part of the solution? Real-time search of real-time discussion. This is why Twitter purchased 'Summize.'  

4.  The final part of the solution. Is real-time search within the bounds of 'friends as filters' This delivers real-time results most relevant to you. This is what Twission aims to provide.

Check it out. Twission.

Back in April, I wrote 'search is dead' and used the phrase 'discovery is the new cocaine' a phrase I picked up from the discoverio guys at the Web2.0expo.

Web2 is about participation, but what comes after that? We think it is all about Discovery, the art of helping users serendipitously discover content and people that they did not know they wanted to know. Discovery is what makes people come back again and again, interact, and explore.

So the guys made the slideshare homepage with presentation they gave at SXSW. Its brilliant and insightful and may just change the way you look at things.

If you've been talking to me at all you probably heard me say stuff like this. Connecting 'people 2 info' is trumped by connecting 'people 2 people'. Google is great at connecting people to information. But a better way to create new knowledge is to connect people to people. When you connect to people they discover and create new knowledge. And people find this activity deeply rewarding and highly addictive. As the guys discoverio say '..discovery is the new cocaine'. The company that manages this will be bigger than Google To give people what they want. To really connect people online. We have to create the same sense of privacy, reputation, identity and trust online that we take for granted in the real world. I came across this today. An article riffing on a comment made by a leading VC...

Search is dead...[In the near future, people will] find what they want by using their social network rather than a search algorithm. After all, the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right?

Social discovery pivots on identity

...this focus on online identity is what could turn search upside down... it’s conceivable that the information could attempt to find us—the old concept of push media, but in a far more refined way. As new content enters the Web, it could tumble through the various filters that you set up around your identity...

The unholy mess of privacy and security issues show us where the pivotal opportunity lies

...[currently] nobody owns this space the way Google “owns� search. And as it evolves, there will be an unholy mess of privacy and security issues to work out.

This kind of talk was the ever-constant ever-recurring theme at the Web2.0 expo this last week in San Francisco. And this has made me even more excited about RelevantM than ever. If that were even possible.