We're all awash in data, so finding the significant bits and bytes that can lead to information is a maddening process.



Jon Burke, writing in the
November 2, 2005 edition of
MIT's Technology Review, presents some web-based technological options.  See “Finding Signals in the Noise.”






We were impressed by a new product/site called “Memeorandum,” but Burke points out a handful of alternatives.



Excerpt:

“Few would dispute that we live in an age of
information overload. In the last few years alone, blogs have increased
the torrent of information each day to unmanageable levels.  This
would explain, then, why a corresponding torrent of startups has
surfaced recently to help us filter, manage, and control this flood of
information. Some rely on insightful algorithms that understand
popularity to filter the news, while others rely on the preferences of
readers.

For example, Digg
is a San Francisco startup that ranks news items by letting people
choose which stories they like. It just landed $2.8 million in venture
capital from Omidyar Network, former Netscape founder Marc Andreessen,
and Greylock Partners. We also understand that a comparable site — Memeorandum — may close a round of financing shortly.

The concept of making users prioritize or create hierarchies for news is not new — Slashdot
has been doing it since 1997. But the latest generation of sites like
Digg and Memeorandum are showing that user-prioritized news is, indeed,
a powerful and easy way to drive traffic — in some cases to a site
created by a single employee with a lone server.”