TaxiBeat: Only Ride with the Best Drivers

When traveling abroad, transportation is one of the more difficult aspects to figure out during your trip. Besides the possible language barrier, many cities don't have high quality or standardized services, forcing tourists to pay high prices for that quality or to take their chances on a taxi or bus that's cheaper but not necessarily legal or legitimate. Fortunately, there's a new app that makes it easier to find a great taxi without having to change the rules or learn a new language. TaxiBeat is a mobile app that improves the taxi-hailing experience by allowing users to rate their drivers, as well as locate the closest available taxi. Instead of flagging any random taxi driver, you can choose your driver through the app based on your needs as well as the ratings of other TaxiBeat users. Launched in spring 2011, TaxiBeat has been downloaded over half a million times.

"We don't just strip out the tedious call to the taxi operator, nor do we service a 'blind date' between passengers and drivers," said Nick Drandakis, founder of TaxiBeat. "Instead, we provide at-a-glance info to help you choose which car and driver you want to hail, and then rate them afterwards"

The app, headquartered in Athens, Greece, has a network of over 15,000 drivers worldwide. Drivers register to be featured in the app individually, as TaxiBeat does not work with taxi companies or any other middlemen. All drivers have to do is submit their paperwork proving that they can legally drive a taxi in their country, and can be approved and profiled in the system as quickly as an hour.

"We don't choose the drivers," Drandakis said. "Only the best drivers want to be in the app. They aren't afraid of ratings."

Drandakis said that these profiles include more than the ratings of previous passengers. Those seeking a taxi can also find out it a driver speaks a certain language, includes mobile phone chargers in his/her vehicle, or is child- or pet-friendly. This information helps users choose a driver that can meet their needs, but also informs the driver on what customers may want so they can adjust their offerings and serve more passengers.

"We award good drivers and punish bad drivers," he said. "Our customers determine who gets the most jobs."

TaxiBeat is specifically targeting cities that face a big problem with the quality of their taxi services, so cities such as London and New York City won't be part of the app's network because those cities have great taxi services. Drandakis wants to leverage reputation for the taxi industry, since drivers typically work as anonymous service providers. The anonymity makes it difficult for them to build a repeat customer base. Drandakis wants to change this, which will ultimately improve the safety and service quality in these specific markets.

"This is an element missing in this market," he said. "[TaxiBeat] is the future of the taxi market. It's how it should work."

The app first launched in Athens, and is now available in Paris, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. Over the next few months, TaxiBeat plans to launch in Turkey and Peru. The app is free to download for iPhone or Android devices.

photo credit: jm3 via photopin cc

1st Post of the New Year!

Happy New Year! Last year, I pledged to blog every single day, and that lasted about a month. Ever since then, my blogging has essentially been a series of fits and starts. I do it for a week or two, only to run out of time, ideas, or both. Even with my 50 blog post ideas list, I've only done about 15 of those articles, and maybe about 25 posts total since I wrote that list.

What To Do This Year

I'm really not sure if I want to pledge anything to the blog this year. I feel that 2013 was full of plans, pledges, dreams and not a whole lot of action. I didn't follow through with many things I said I would work on or accomplish. Partly, I don't want to pledge anything because I don't need another goal or task on my to-do list. I also don't have any clue as to what I would want to pledge or would want out of this blog. The focus of it has always changed, and I've never been able to settle on an idea to which I want to commit. That's something I want to work on this year, so consider "commitment" my chosen theme for 2014. Since I spent so much time planning to do things and not actually doing those things that I planned, I'd like to change that by committing to a few things and following through with my plans. Since I restart my business coaching next week, and part of my coaching involves daily journaling, I'll probably be blogging much more often to chronicle the coaching and my growth process. I think that's more fun than doing it all in Evernote, as my coach prefers, so I'll journal here and then put the links into her Evernote.

2014, Here I Come!

I am still excited for the New Year, however. Things have started off swimmingly, and I have high hopes for the next few coming months. My news gigs are steady and a lot of fun, while get to spend the time informing myself of what's going on in the world. I also still have steady work from my clients, so I have plenty to keep me busy and afloat. Time management is going to be key for me, but because I restart my coaching next week, I'll have an accountability buddy in my life to help me stay on track and to hold me accountable to all these plans.

One goal/resolution that I have for 2014 is to get an iPhone. I know I'm late to the party since it's 2014 and I don't have a smartphone yet, but I definitely need to get one this year since I work for a news app. I need to be able to buy the app and use it on my phone. I want to be able to show the app to people when I tell them about the app and my work. I want to see the app working in real time and use it the way a normal customer would use it so I can be better and more customer-centric when I do my own work. It'll be nice to have a smartphone finally and to take advantage of this amazing productivity tool. The iPhone is one goal/resolution that's certain because I can't work for an app but not be able to access the app. For most places, it's not acceptable to work somewhere but not to use the product or service of your employer.

I don't have anything else set except to stay the course and to work hard. I need to do a lot of building and rebuilding this year since I hardly did any of that in 2013.

What About Information Digestion?

As I've previously mentioned, I finished reading The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption and, overall, I found it to be great read. Author Clay Johnson makes several excellent points throughout the book, essentially arguing that the problem is information over-consumption, not necessarily information overload. He uses health and nutrition as a metaphor, where we don't blame obesity on food overload but on food over-consumption, and that information over-consumption is the big problem for a variety of reasons. I do agree with Johnson, and I do agree with some of the solutions that he offers. One of those solutions is avoiding information and news sources that simply confirm our beliefs, typically sites and television shows that tell us that we are right instead of providing the facts or forcing us to challenge our notions or worldview. Another solution he advocates is a program called RescueTime, which monitors how you spend your time online and provides an accurate picture of your information consumption habits. From there, you can figure out what to cut and how to better spend that time that was typically wasted on mindless information consumption.

However, All that Is Only Half the Story

Limiting our information consumption and choosing the information we consume wisely are incredibly important. I don't disagree with that. I think the book falls short in what I'll call "information digestion," to keep with Johnson's health and nutrition metaphor. In regular health and nutrition, there's no reason to think about digestion. It's an involuntary bodily function that happens when it's supposed to, although eating the wrong things can mess with digestion and make it harder and more painful than it ought to be. However, with information consumption, we need to think about digestion too. We need to think about how we're interpreting the information, using it and acting upon it. We have to think about information digestion because it's not involuntary and how we digest information can change depending on our behaviors and attitudes.

Removing sources that just confirm our beliefs doesn't necessarily help because any news article or source can be interpreted as information that confirms our beliefs or that just presents one side of the story. For example, Huffington Post released survey findings earlier this month showing that only 36% of Americans have a lot of trust in that the information they get from scientists is reliable and accurate. Over 50% of Americans have a little bit of trust. With science journalists, 57% of Americans have a little bit of trust while 26% said that they don't trust science journalists at all to report on scientific studies accurately. These statistics make me wonder who these people would trust for information regarding scientific studies if they don't trust scientists or science journalists. I have a hard time believing that a politician or a lay person could report on scientific studies accurately or disseminate their contents reliably.

Hence, Our Need for Information Digestion

This is where information digestion needs to come in, as the source needs to be evaluated as well as the information the source is providing and what that information could mean or imply. Critical thinking needs to take place here, and we need to be willing to let information challenge our worldviews or what we believe. After all, it's still confirmation if we automatically write off the information because it came from a scientist or science journalist. It's also not good digestion if we approach the information with mistrust because it came from a scientist or science journalist because we might not necessarily take away anything valuable from that information. The idea of information digestion is a concept that merits an entire blog post on its own because it's a rather complicated concept. It's about recognizing when you have that bias, how to evaluate sources/information, and accepting the fact that you may not always be right or know everything. Not everyone wants to change their minds or admit that they are wrong.

What to Do Tomorrow, and in 2014

Earlier today, my brain was mush. I wanted to write but I didn't have any ideas. I was stressed about work and money, which just filled me with worry instead of creativity. I wasn't in the mindset to get things done or to focus on a task. But, I've worked my four-hour news shift and I feel much better. Reading and summarizing the news made me okay again. Took my attention away from everything else, i suppose.

I Really Want to Set Goals for 2014

I really do want to think about next year and set some goals, but I first want to read The Desire Map by Danelle LaPorte and consider what she has to say about goal setting and the feelings that you are chasing. I think LaPorte is on to something and I do want to read her book and perhaps invest in some of her other materials if I find her message to be helpful. My gut says that her message would be life changing and very eye-opening for me. Essentially, she says that goal setting is typically about things: successes, accomplishments, accumulating items, when it's really about how we want to feel when we get those things. This is part of the reason why I wanted to revisit my poker goals and put them aside. I didn't necessarily want a WSOP bracelet or a WPT title. I more wanted what I would feel if I got those things. LaPorte says instead of setting goals toward the things, we should set goals toward what we want to feel. Set the goal to feel auspicious, liberty, knowledge, joy, or whatever your desired feelings are. It's not only less overwhelming, but you know that if you set your goal to feel auspicious, then you'll know feel auspicious once you reach your goal.

I Didn't Hit Any of My 2013 Goals

The whole idea of blogging every day for an entire year failed, although I know that it's possible because great thinkers like Seth Godin and Mitch Joel blog every day. Granted, Godin primarily writes very short posts (but posts that make very effective use of those words) and Joel does spend one post a week sharing his most recent podcast (which I listen to when there's a guest I'm interested in), but they have at least one idea to share every day. I'm sure I have at least one idea I could share every day. It's a matter of capturing the moment of the idea and committing it to writing. It's also about having the courage to share the idea, and the discipline to do more work to support the idea. Sometimes, I'm afraid to share the idea because I don't want criticism (primarily from my mother). Other times, I don't want to do the necessary research or analyze articles. I think LaPorte's work will help with this as well, since I don't take a lot of time to consider my feelings. I prefer to keep things intellectual and logical.

My business is also nonexistent, nearly, and I didn't do any of my business goals. When money got tight in the middle of the year, I had to make changes and to consider a new direction. I'm hoping to find that direction in the news industry, and use my current experiences to find a way to fill in what's missing in the news & information landscape. I did finish reading Information Diet, and I do think that it's a good read. But, I don't know if the solutions provided are ones that ultimately solve the problem. Yes, keeping ourselves focused and tuning out distractions when possible is very important to limiting our information intake, but I do think there's nothing suggesting how to manage, sort, and to think about the information we do get. Alas, that's another discussion for another day. Perhaps tomorrow.

I Don't Know if It's Important for Me to Excel at Poker Anymore

I haven't played poker for a few months now. Probably the last time I played was when I was in Las Vegas in October. It might have been sometime before that or just after that trip when I last played poker online. The new update on Lock Poker took away all the fish, and I just don't have the time to play and to study like I used to, especially since I have my part-time news app gig as well as my clients to attend to. At this point, I'm strongly considering withdrawing what I have left of my deposit and putting poker on the shelf. I certainly don't have the time to study and to improve my game, let alone play the game and assess what I did right or wrong. I have other priorities that require my attention. As much as I like poker, and how badly poker needs strong female players, I don't know if it's all that important to me to excel at poker anymore.

Winning a Few Titles Would Be Great But...

My heart is not in poker like it used to be, and I think I wanted the success of poker (the money, the fame, the accolades) for the wrong reasons. I made this realization when I watched a Marie Forleo interview with self-help guru Danielle LaPorte. The interview is over 20 minutes, and I understand that LaPorte might come across as a little too hippie for some people, but the basic takeaway I got from this interview was that goal setting was entirely backwards. Goals are set regardless of how we want to feel, so we set goals, fail to reach them, and feel horrible about it. We set goals, change our mind about those goals, and then feel horrible about it. We set goals, but it takes longer than we planned to reach them, so we feel horrible about the time it took to reach that goal. We set goals, exceed them with flying colors, and still feel horrible about it because we feel we should have set a bigger goal. The point is to decide on how we want to feel first, and then set goals that get us there.

This explanation of goal setting blew my mind, and caused me to evaluate the goals I have set for myself and to determine how I want to feel. That's why I think my poker goals were set for the wrong reasons. I think I set them because I thought the rewards would do certain things and would make me feel a certain way. I don't know if those thing would be true if I were to achieve those goals. Also, with our desired feelings (as explained in the interview), these feeling shouldn't be attached to external factors. Feeling a certain way shouldn't rely on someone else's actions or having a specific something. I think my poker goals relied on external factors contributing to my feelings, which is why I don't think I set them for the right reasons or wanted to reach my poker goals for the right reasons.

About Those Desired Feelings

I haven't taken the time to think about my desired feelings, but once I heard about the concept, I identified a few feelings that I didn't want to feel. They were negative feelings that I've been experiencing a lot lately, and I felt that something I could do now is to take actions that remove those negative feelings. For example, I don't like being stressed. That's a negative emotion, so I think about what I can do to remove stress. Usually, this has been accomplished by tackling an unpleasant task first, which helps a great deal in making me feel productive. Once I turn these small actions into habits, then I'll start thinking about my desired feelings and the positive feelings that I want to have. They can't just be the opposites of the negative feelings, like the opposite of stressed is relaxed. I don't know I really want relaxed or relaxation as a desired feeling. But, this is why I'm going to dedicate time to sorting this out on another day.

New, Awesome, Fun Idea for My Blog

Since I spend about 30 hours a week devouring the news, I pondered over how to apply all that news consumption toward the blog. I like the news. I like reading the news. I like writing about the news. But, I don't want to do what others are paying me to do. It's best that I save those task for those who are paying me to do those things. As I said previously, I don't want to just do what everyone else is doing. I don't think that helps anyone, and some behaviors don't need to be replicated. I finally came up with that new, awesome, fun idea. It's based on the idea of "I Statements", where you express how you feel in the form of "I think" or "I feel" versus saying "You do this" or "You say this". I would apply this to various news events, explaining "I hate..." or "I like..." or "I accept..." to the correlating news story. This is a tactic no one else is doing, and I like that this method isn't necessarily constrained by what everyone else is talking about. Although, I could always pull the "I don't care about..." or "I'm annoyed by..." for those types of stories. Anyway, here's an example of what I'm talking about:

I Support: a Bill to Prohibit Employers From Using Credit Checks During the Hiring Process

Earlier this week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced a bill that would do just that, citing that the practice disproportionately hurts poor people. The article highlights how this practice could hurt poor people more often, since it says they are used to disqualify people of color and that women are typically hit harder with divorces and given sub prime loans. Specific statistics or anecdotes aren't shown in the article, but this isn't why I support this bill.

I support this bill because credit reports are a horrible factor to use in the hiring process. First, there's no evidence to show that a credit report or score is correlated to a person's employability, or more importantly, on-the-job success. Yes, the research does show that those with higher credit scores also do well with "task performance", meaning that they tend to complete their tasks on time and do them well. But, a good hire is much more than someone who completes their tasks on time and does them well. A good hire is also someone who fits in well with company culture, who is an engaged employee (someone who loves the job as well as the company), who shows initiative and is willing to improve their skills. Finding someone who can do the job doesn't ensure that they'll be a good hire, and they'll be the person who sticks with your company beyond the first few months.

Second, credit reports can have mistakes on them. Credit checks are legal, and under Fair Credit Reporting Act, job hunters are allowed three to five days to fix mistakes. However, when 40 million Americans have mistakes on their credit reports and correcting those errors often takes a lot longer than five days. Of course, job hunters get those extra days to fix errors if the employer gives them a chance. Most don't, simply saying that they aren't going to hire you. Employers may be able to weed out a bad hire, but it's also possible they're rejecting a really good hire based on faulty information. Employers may want someone with a good credit score, but they ought to want someone who will succeed in the position. If that person who will succeed doesn't have the best credit score, then the employer is only hurting themselves by not hiring them.

I support this bill. I will talk to my representatives about this bill when the time comes.

Can I Just Be a News Expert?

Is there such a thing as a news expert? I ask because that's what I want to be. If it already does exist, then that's what I want to be and I want to know what it takes to become a news expert. If it doesn't yet exist, then I'll figure out what it means to be a news expert, do that, and then call myself a news expert. Perhaps expert isn't the best word, especially if I have to create this position or persona. I looked in the thesaurus (cause that's what I do), and I like the sound of "news specialist" and "news master". I think "news artist" also has a nice ring to it, but I do have a little trouble envisioning what the news artist does on a day-to-day basis.

The Mothership is Calling Me Home

The mothership called when I was checking on my application status with About.com. I applied to be the guide for the US Liberal Politics section months and months ago. It's so long ago I don't even remember when I applied. I checked on my status, only to find out once again that they haven't gotten around to may application yet. While browsing their list of available topics, I discovered that About.com was also accepting applications for their World News section! It's as if the Internet knows I'm in need of my mothership! I applied right away. I really don't know if I could handle both sections, but I'd love to do the World News section if I had a choice between the two. I'll be happy if I get one or the other.

I'm so glad to be doing news again. That was why I started my business. That was why I stopped freelancing. I didn't want to be stuck covering what someone else wanted me to cover or what other people thought was important. I wanted to cover what I thought was important and what I felt needed covering. I strayed from all that chasing marketing clients and using my marketing training to build an agency, even though I didn't really want an agency and had no intention of going into the marketing industry. I don't think I was really doing that work for the right reasons, and I don't think I ever had the confidence in myself to do marketing like I do to do the news. The news is just absolutely amazing! Each day you learn something new, and you never know what's going to happen next! It's truly a career path where every day is different. No two days on the job are exactly the same.

I'm Wondering How to Turn this Into a Business or Really Good Side Gig

I have two great news gigs right now, one with News Headquarters and another with a news app that's launching in January (when it launches, I can reveal the name of this app). I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing for both of them, and both of them also have room for advancement and additional work. If those opportunities come up, then I plan to take them and to drop some of my other clients if I have to. I'm absolutely happy to be reading and writing the news again. I'm thinking that what I might have to do is slug it out for the next year or two, working in the industry and figuring out where I can fill in what's missing. I'd like to use this blog and/or Stirring Media to do that, but I'm really not sure how without duplicating what's already being done. I don't want to just duplicate. I want to shake up the news industry with an innovative approach to reporting, delivering, and interpreting the news. I'm just not sure what that innovative approach is yet.

What I Need to Be Able to Play Skyrim

I want to play Skyrim, the fifth game in the Elder Scroll series, so badly! I've been watching Sips play Skyrim for months and months now, and once you see the graphics and game play in Skyrim, it's hard to go back to Oblivion or Morrowind. I've already watch Sips play a lot of Skyrim, and I can only imagine how much he hasn't done yet and how many places he hasn't explored in the world yet. It's makes me so excited to play the game! I want to see all the places I haven't seen yet! I want to build my own house! I want to do all those open quests that Sips hasn't touched yet, even though he keeps picking up more and more quests! However, I might need a whole new computer to play it. My fiance also needs a new computer, and I know that he's planning to get a computer that can handle Skyrim, but I might be in a better position to get a new computer or to get an upgrade first. Here are the minimum system requirements needed to play Skyrim:

• Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
• Processor: Intel Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor (AMD Sempron @ 2.4 GHz)
• 2GB System RAM
• 6GB free HDD space
• Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM
• DirectX compatible sound card
• Internet access for Steam activation

The video card and the sound card are the only two things I don't know how to confirm, unless I can dig up my owner's manual and review the information. I don't really know where that is, and I might have actually thrown it away because my cat peed on it. Although, the fact that I have everything else makes me wonder if my computer can handle Skyrim. I bought it about five months prior to when the game was released. Although, what I could do is perhaps just purchase the right cards, and then get them installed into my laptop.

But, I am Able to Play Hearthstone!

I received my beta invitation to play Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft yesterday, and the game is absolutely amazing! This is another game that I watched Sips and the rest of the Yogscast play, and it looked so much fun even though I don't play World of Warcraft. I only played Magic: The Gathering once in my life, so I know how but I'm not an avid player by any means. I love Hearthstone because there's so much strategy to it, but it's not boring because there's fun sound effects and characters to play.

Right now, I'm still in practice mode trying to beat the AI on expert level. I need to level up each the classes to earn more cards. Then, I'm going to try the Arena and try to play actual people. Once I get some experience playing actual people and choosing cards to play (in Arena, you have to create a deck prior to the match. The cards you have to choose from are giving to you randomly) then I'm going to try to create my own deck. Since I'm not choosing any of my own cards right now, I'm certainly not ready to do it on my own. I only have a faint idea of what needs to be in my deck in order to have something versatile and well-rounded.

Overall, video games are awesome and it's really nice to play a critical-thinking game again. Game Dev Tycoon was the game I was playing before this, and it requires a lot of thinking, but there isn't too much strategy to it. It's just a matter of managing resources and trying to squeeze in as much as possible. I think I might need to play a few more rounds of Hearthstone now.

How I Can Be a Better Half the Sky Ambassador

I FINALLY have a private screening for Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide scheduled for this weekend. Granted, it's only a partial screening of the economic empowerment section, but it's a chance to educate people and to engage them in discussion and action on a very critical women's rights issue. I wouldn't be able to do this without the help of the St. Louis chapter of the Young Ambassadors for Opportunity. They're an organization that promotes micro-lending and insurance for small business owners in developing countries. Partnerships are critical to being a good Half the Sky Ambassador or in any other activism and non-profit work. However, much more than partnerships are needed to effect change for women around the world or in any other issue. Here's a few things I could do to accomplish more and to be a better ambassador for women's rights and equality:

Write More Articles on the Subject

Writing is one of my best and biggest assets and one that I need to leverage more in my ambassadorship. I haven't written any articles yet on the issues, at least not as a Half the Sky Ambassador, and I certainly have the ability to do so. Outlets such as International Political Forum, Daily Globe, my personal blog, Technorati, and the Amnesty St. Louis blog are all perfect places to cover the many issues addressed in the book and film and to encourage action. I just need to make the time to do the necessary research, to come up with good topics, to pitch the articles, and to get them done. Easier said than done, sure, but I can do it. What I should do is connect these issues with current events where possible, bringing attention to them because there's demand to learn about the current event while offering a different angle to these stories that hasn't been covered before.

Work on That Fundraiser

After the St. Louis Amnesty International chapter read the book and watched the film, we were inspired to do something. Women's rights are human rights and many of the issues portrayed in both are issues that Amnesty is also working on. Our plan was to have a fundraiser and raise money for one of the organizations in the film. However, as an Amnesty International chapter, we learned that we couldn't raise funds for anyone other than Amnesty International. It's part of the organization's rules. So, we couldn't do the fundraiser under the organization's name, although our group leader offered the opportunity for someone to take the reins and to manage the project on their own.

This is something that I should work on and plan a fundraiser for April or May when the weather is nicer and people aren't hung over from the holidays and all that spending. I think it would be fun to do a silent auction/trivia night, where it's a cheap entry fee of $5 but most of the fundraising money come from purchasing entries for the silent auction. The hard part will then be getting enough prizes for the silent auction and getting prizes that are good enough to auction off. But, I think if I start now and plan for an April or May event, it could be a really awesome fundraiser and something that I could at least get the Amnesty International group to attend or to set up a table to collect signatures.

Make Time for Strategy

The main reason why I'm not all that good an ambassador is because I don't make time for it. I just hope that I have time for it eventually, somewhere during the day. But, I never do because the time always goes toward things that I make time for, which is usually work stuff and video games. I think what I should do is plan for one screening for one-half of the documentary while preparing for this really awesome fundraiser.

Contributing to the Information Diet

There's a book I read about two years ago called, The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption. I remembered that I liked the book and found it informative, but after two years, I've forgotten the premise and main points. Since it's a short book, and since I've gotten back into the news business, I've borrowed it from the library to read it again. I think this is an important re-read as I am fulfilling the role of creating news and content for the consumption of others. I've already gone through the introduction, which refreshed memory that Information Diet makes the case that the consumption of news/information should be treated like how we ought to consume food. The over-consumption of food can lead to a variety of diseases, and the same can happen with a hyper-consumption of information in general, or in the over-consumption of the wrong information. As summarized in the introduction of the book:

If unhealthy information consumption creates bad information habits the way unhealthy eating creates food addictions, then what good is transparency?... You cannot simply flood the market with broccoli and hope that people stop eating french fries. If large numbers of people only seek out information that confirm their beliefs, then flooding the market with data from and about the government will not work as well as the theorists predict.

The overall point is that it's not enough to put the good information and the good news coverage out there. You need to change behaviors as well, probably concurrently as you put out the information that's part of a healthy information diet. A point that I'd like to make about this concept is that over-consumption can lead us to a point where we aren't filtering the information to come to a logical conclusion or to weigh various sides very well. It's much like choice overload, as the act of filtering information means that you are making choices about which information is most credible, most relevant, or even the most truthful. If you have too much choice, or too much information to go through, then it's easier not to choose or to settle on ideas that confirm your beliefs or affirm what you already know or think to be true. Or, even to choose not to read any information at all.

"We choose not to choose even when it goes against our best self interests," as Sheena Iyengar says in this speech below about why people chose, or don't choose, in the first place.

Commitment to Good News Coverage

As I get back into the news industry and assess trends, study what I'm doing, and watch what competitors are doing, I need to look for a way to contribute to the information buffet and to encourage a healthful information diet. I'm not one to do what everyone else is doing, so I need to figure out what's happening and then fill in what's missing. Curation and aggregation are hot right now, but I'm not much of a fan of either. Too easy to spread information that's just incorrect while creating a system where too few people are the actual news writers and creators. It also can lead to an echo chamber where something that's wrong is shared and repeated before it's corrected. Curation and aggregation involves sharing and repurposing what other people are doing. When there's too few people, certain topics will be missed simply because everything can't be covered. When there's an echo chamber, there's also an incentive to report things that do well in the echo chamber, versus topics that need to be said and covered. I wish I had the answer to everything now. Perhaps I'll have a few more once I finish re-reading the book and work in the industry a few more months or years.