Taming information from the Internet with one website

The mass amount of information one can spend hours reading, watching, and being entertained is limitless for any individual. Some would consider much of the information found on the Internet as noise.

Many have tried finding ways of reducing that noise for you.

Leading the charge, Guy Kawasaki is taming the volumes of information one website at a time. His latest introduction is Alltop. A website for those who just want information at their finger tips without figuring out the multitude of RSS readers, adding RSS feeds, XML, and bombarded by email updates from bloggers (which you may have received from me because of this post).

Alltop's, "all the top stories", is an execution in simplicity. Sure not all websites are on there (including this one sadly). And sure you cannot customize the list. That's because this is a list of the "top sites" on the web. It's your dashboard into the best of the blogosphere.

Guy walks you through a day in the life of using AllTop.

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated simple,
awesomely simple, that's creativity."
- Charles Mingus

Relating this to Business Intelligence... when you're designing, building, or requesting changes to your Business Intelligence system, you may want to keep in mind the power of simplicity and how effective it can be. Does the business need all variations of revenue reports when a dashboard may suffice? Maybe the path from corporate Strategy Map to performance metrics could be made crystal clear for managers.

The power is not in the volumes of functionality provided by toolsets but in the clear, concise presentation of the information.

You've got questions, they have answers instantly

Instantly may not be much of an exaggeration. One of my questions was answered in 16 seconds. You can ask anything. And they most likely will have an answer! Their motto:

"No one knows everything. Everyone knows something."

The Muchobene Instant Answers site allows any question to be asked. Muchobene then places you in contact with an appropriate person who can answer it within seconds. I must say, what a great concept! I may finally be able to win at Trivial Pursuit.

Here are screen shots from the conversation I had. And the great part is, you're conversing with someone (who-knows-where) with answers you need.

Initial screen waiting for that special someone to respond to my query.


My question about 'green' technology was responded to in 26 seconds.


Some pleasant conversation via instant messaging as he or she sends me more information.


And finally closing remarks, while I rank the response I received as "Right On!", five stars.


The possibilities are endless in my mind. Imagine customer support from your bank starting a conversation with you in seconds. Never being put on hold. No automated attendants.

Simply an instant connection to people who can answer your question. Thanks Guy Kawasaki for making this happen.