Survey: How do You Process Online Information?

August 16th, 2009Survey: How do You Process Online Information?

Posted by Eyal Sela in category information overload with Tags Knowledge Management, Productivity, Search Tactics, Survey

information processing methods Every day we read, hear, and see tens of web pages if not more. How do you process the useful and interesting information you find online? Do you send it to yourself via email? Do you star it in Google Reader or add tags? Or maybe you just rely on the good old brain to retrieve the right information at the right time?

To participate, write in the comments what are your online information processing methods.

Next month I’ll post a summary of all the answers.

image by kevindooley

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Mohan Arun L

One of the most worthwhile questions ever asked. I would be interested to know others answers. I just bookmark with rememberable/recallable tags but I think the bookmarking functionality needs to be extended to actually index the page content also, if you add tag 'jquery' and page content is about 10 different jquery techniques you dont want to go through each of the items and add the tag as a searchable keyword, getting the bookmark functionality to also index the entire page content frees you from the task of remembering too much. You only need to remember popular concept words and use search & retrieve functions of the non-living organism to get the other parts done. (Thats what it is there for and is good at).

ArpitNext

After reading few comments above, I have realized that I am using the oldest tool of Internet communication to process online stuff -- the email.
Gmail has so many features for importing and exporting information, which makes it the most powerful web 2.0 tool. I save my bookmarks, critical data (read financial data), my documents, chat records, favorite blog posts/articles and almost everything else. I can retrieve the information w/o any problem or special effort -- just type something related and hit the return key. :)

Shoham Israel-OpenU

I agree with Ian Fenwick (above) that there's a difference between info processing and info management (storing,classifying and retrieval): To process information I need to put it in context, actually read/watch/hear the item and integrate it with other info items in my head (create new insight or knowledge) and often in some sort of info product - team meeting, lecture, article, presentation etc.

Information management in my workplace is either team-centered (relying heavily on organizational mail & internal websites for sharing links, project documentation & notes etc.) or personal. Personally, I mainly store needed info as links in delicious, tagged according to subject and relevant work issue/project. For info discovery I use Google Reader & Twitter, star & tag items but hardly go back... If it's important enough to go back to, I add it as a tab in my browser homepage and try to finish processing and move to storage (delicious) within a short period of time. I wish delicious integrated with Yahoo Bookmarks/MyWeb because that service automatically saved a copy of the page.
Lately I started experimenting with Diigo and Posterous - love the concept, but it has not become "second nature" yet. Generally I've noticed that being methodical & consistent in the tools I use saves a lot of time and search efforts. Also, I prefer web-based apps since I work on different computers and have no patience to sync...

RonnyO

When finding a really comprehensive resource I usually add its RSS feed to Netvibes. If it's a single article which is worth remembering for years to come, I add it to delicious; And if I just stumble on something I would like to dig into later I use the "LaterThis" quick bookmarklet.

I do notice that storing, tagging and writing notes about all these might turn into a huge time-sucker. Let's just hope future use will justify my current efforts.

dibau_naum_h

I indeed trust my mind's API to index the information - so I read a few lines & grasp the main idea.
I then also bookmark it in delicious for backup reference. I've got a tag: must_read, to mark to myself that it's important, but I almost never get to read it.
If it's of real value to others, I twit it too.

Although I don't have a good solution - I'm not leaving it like that! I started working with a friend of mine on an engine that generates a daily summary of all the information stream that arrived that day, using smart textual & semantic analysis. Currently it fails to handle the load even of my twitter stream, but if we'll succeed to make it work well, I'll post a link to it here.

eyalsela

"I indeed trust my mind's API to index the information" - Nice :)

Karine Barzilai-Nahon

It depends. Regarding - Interesting stuff but not important to my work as a researcher - I upload the links in Twitter and Facebook, sometimes keep in bookmarks, or in a special folder in my email. The chances to really find or remember where it is are small after a while. But the feeling that it is there makes me think and believe that if I really need this material again, I can find it with some effort.

Regarding important stuff for my work as a researcher - e.g. - reports, research, papers - I keep in a more consistent why on my computer in a special folder with categories of subjects. Here I rely on my intellectual mapping of subjects, and usually I remember where I put things.

Finally, I don't use google desktop or XXX or any software that can search my computer, because I am afraid of privacy breach.

Saggi Malachi

Google Bookmarks with as many tags as possible. makes it available in both FF and Chrome.

eyalsela

Didn't they close down Google Bookmarks? How doe's the syncing with Chrome works?

Chema B

I use Windows at work and a Mac at home so I prefer to use web/online tools rather than clients:

-Gathering: I use Google Reader as the main source of information and try to find a RSS feed for any topic/blog/company that I'm interested in. I used to use Twitter but the amount of tweets was unmanageable (even with a desktop client) so I'm only keeping real people there who I know read the tweets and reply to them. I'm also subscribed to few email digests using Gmail.

-Processing/Storing: Apart from starring things on Google Reader or Gmail, if I find anything interesting somewhere else I email it to my Gmail account using labels directly from the email address. This is a feature that it's not well known but if you append a keyword to your Gmail address, you can then send a quick labelled email and filter it quickly in Gmail. For instance, if your address is jdoe@gmail.com, you can send yourself an email to jdoe+todo@gmail.com. The email will still be delivered to your address but you can set up filters and tags in Gmail to process it right away.
If I find a good url, I use Del.icio.us

-Sharing: depends very much on the item I'm sharing and who could be interested. I'm on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN, and each of those networks have specific audiences (general, personal and professional). I filter the topic depending on who can be interested and then post it there using whatever method is quicker: from a "share this" link on the page to send it via Google Reader

Armin Talic

There are a few steps to my daily information routine.

Firstly, I have NetNewsWire for my RSS feeds, for which I also have an iPhone app that syncs to the desktop client.
So, that around 100 feeds that I read every day, without fail. Must just received a 2 second skim read of the title, if I find that interesting, I'll read the rest of the article.

I also us a handful of gallery sites, to discover new sites and web applications, which I bookmark using Delicious. My delicious RSS feed is then pushed to twitter using Hootsuite.

Twitter also plays a big part in my information discovery process, as the links that are shared by the people I choose to follow, are usually valuable.

Lastly, I used a combination of 'Evernote', 'Things' and plain old paper to do the rest.

Yarin Hochman

I'm mostly work with tons of tabs open. If it's something really important to me I bookmark it and sync it with Xmarks which also allows me to tag then and sort them.

Shlomi Fish

Well, I find most of the information I come by not interesting enough to remember that I read it. Sometimes I wish to recall it in which case I search the web (using Google, and recently also Yahoo, etc.), which often takes a long time or doesn't yield the exact link. Sometimes I search my akregator archive.

Some links I bookmark in the Firefox bookmarks, or my delicious.com or StumbleUpon or plurk about ( http://www.plurk.com/ is a micro-blogging service). But normally I rely on a web search to find it back or on the Firefox recent history feature, etc.

I normally don't email such stuff to myself. Got better places to store them.

Regards,

-- Shlomi Fish

Rani

I open many links. then read some. leave other as they are. open new links, and again. after 2-3 days i go over the links. I f I find them interesting again they are being sent to my bookmarks+deliciuos. If not, You know your self.

Miriam Schwab

.diigo.com/profile/illuminea
2. We have an internal company wiki for keeping track of useful information related to all types of internet marketing. Really amazing stuff goes in there under the relevant page.
3. Email filing: If I’m reading something I really like on my iPod Touch, I email the link to myself for later filing in diigo or our wiki. One other case where I use email for filing information is for political information. I save all useful links related to a certain area of politics in a few Gmail labels.

Oron B

@tweet: I usually just add the site to my favorites. When it's get too messy, i organize the favorites in directories.
If i know there's no chance i'll ever need the site again, but still unwilling to totally get rid of it, i send the site's link to my gmail. In the message itself i add as much words as possible to tag the message for easier finding in the future.
@Oink.

Mahendra

Combination of many things: Gmail, GReader, social bookmarking sites, etc. everything aggregated to FriendFeed, StoryTlr and Chi.mp. For some insight, see http://mahendrap.wordpress.com/my-online-social....

This strategy is constantly under review and tuning, especially with the Facebook acquisition of FriendFeed.

עומר פרצ'יק

bookmarking it on chrome

talgalili

I am sad to say that I didn't find a good answer yet.

Bookmarks - build up and I just stopped using them.
del.icio.us - I use them with chrome via a bookmarklet. I add a link, mark all the recommended tags for it (which seems more stupid the more time passes)
txt files - I gather links I have on them, when I surf on work and then e-mail them to me.

Twitter - I twitt the link on, in hope the FF addon that will take my links into del.icio.us will finally work as it should
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...

Blog about it - I believe this is probably the number one way of making something I come across "stick". But it is also the most time consuming, and can't really scale up the more links I come across.

I hope to see bright ideas discovered in this post.

Great work Eyal!

Tal

Ciprian Rusen

Gathering interesting stuff:
Google Reader - 80%,
Twitter - 10%,
StumbleUpon, Direct Messages from friends, etc - 10%

Processing:
Firefox Extension: ReadItLater for when i don't have time to read interesting stuff
Google Reader - use like/star features

Sharing interesting stuff:
Google Reader - share feature - for all cool stuff
Digg, StumbleUpon for most cool stuff
retweet, facebook post - for the really cool stuff

liors

I consume most of my content through twitter and facebook. Only read stuff that come from there. In addition I am subscribed to Techcrunch and Mashable via email.

Mark O'Neill

If it's a website, I use the Firefox extension "ReadItLater". In Google Reader, I either open the page and then save with ReadItLater or I email it to myself. As a result, I have a huge RIL list.

eyalsela

Do you ever get to actually read them?

Mark O'Neill

Yes, I make a point of working my way through the list every day. But I am also adding to the list every day so it seems the more I read and take off, the more gets added back on! It's a never-ending task.

GeekLad

Email for the most part, Gmail to be precise. Gmail's search feature is a godsend.

galm

I save usefull url's on my links bar if I need it urgently or with Readitlater pluging for Firefox. I sometimes email the info to myself or add it as a new Gtask. If I know I'll be needing the url not in the near future I'll Dell.icio.us it. Another method is sharing - I can find all the URL's I tweeted later (better url's aggregation from Twitter is needed)

Ian Fenwick

someone said "it's not information overload, it's filter failure" and I KNOW that if I do to my Evernote account i can find who said it. FOUND it Clay Shirky (http://web2expo.blip.tv/file/1277460/). Yes I rely heavily on Evernote. The only thing that frustrates me is that I can't easily shorten and consolidate notes into writing, and mark the note as used.
I also use google reader and delicious but less and less as Evernote is better.
I also use Screengrab (firefox addon) to snap the screen.
But i don't call this information processing, i call it storing,classifying and retrieval...processing is something that occurs infrequently. The biggest risk is the classifying and storage actually displaces processing...;-)

techandlife

I star and tag in Google Reader and also bookmark on Delicious using the same tags. Not very productive I know but at least I have some kind of backup if one of these services goes down, disappears or starts to charge. Random sites I come across I just bookmark and tag in Delicious. When retrieving the info, the main problem is remembering the tag I've used. I'm also starting to use Evernote to save some websites I want to keep long-term even if the page disappears from the web.

Sharninder

If its a blog post I usually star it in google reader and get back to it later. If a post that I also want to write about later ... I keep it unread and come back to it when I have the time (this doesn't always work that way, the huge number of unread items in my TODO list is a testimony to that :-) ).

If it's a random site I come across, del.icio.us is my friend.

But, more often than not, I rely on my brain and that hasn't let me down yet. Even if I remember just a tiny bit of info about something, I can nail it down further with a simple web search. Finding stuff in google reader, del.icio.us and friendfeed/facebook is definitely not faster that finding stuff in my own brain.

tobiasverhoog

Depends. Very few things I bookmark (and sync with xmarks). Some more things I will tag in Diigo. Then some more things I will share in Friendfeed, which I know will be pretty easy to find again. You can also search in Google Reader in your read or shared items, which is useful too sometimes. But thinking about it I hardly ever try to find something again.