The Rise of Anti-Algorithmic Networks
Discerning people can recognize that they in a filter bubble across their social networks. I certainly do. A couple of searches and a few likes gives you a new feed based on those actions. We trust the algorithm will serve us up what we want. Since we don’t know exactly how it works, we are also sceptical of it. If we understood how it worked. We’d game it. With all of us migrating to mobile feeds within a core set of apps over the years, the one thing I find algorithmic web has done is removed the serendipity of the old web. Back in the day, I use to frequently go on QBN’s newstoday. It still exists but it ain’t what it used to be. They were ahead of their time by having a feed to begin with. FFFFound would serve up random imagery from a small set of invited hand picked curators. The non-scalable manual curation worked. I’d find and interesting things regularly. On the algorithmic web, the other thing we inherently know, given the number of ads we see, is it isn’t entirely built for us, it’s made with advertisers in mind. It’s part of every social network’s monetization strategy. If we have enough data to serve them the right content we can also serve them the right targeted ad. Yay! We now have a business model.
I’ve gotten filter bubble fatigue. I, like many others wish my Instagram feed was still displayed in chronological order, so I had control over it based on who I followed and unfollowed. Those days are long gone. In reaction to the algorithmic web are a number of different platforms that don’t prioritize your feed, or use algorithms to personalize them. Or serve ads. What got harder as every social network got “smarter” was finding unique long-tail content. The trending content rose to the top, and you never got to see the less popular new stuff. When it comes to the visual arts whether it be painting, photography or illustration the avant-garde or the new attempts to buck the trends. These reactions aren’t always popular at first. Instagram has helped this problem somewhat by allowing users to follow tags directly in addition to searching for them. I do enjoy the manual curation from folks who share similar interests but not so similar that I’m served up the same stuff all the time.
Yuriy Operenko tweeted a thread on anti-algorithmic platforms and identified some of the ones I’ve already been using.
Wilson.fm
I started using Wilson.fm when I got tired of searching for podcasts. I like the fact that Allan Yu, the creator of Wilson, in addition to guest curators put together a series of podcasts around a theme. Creating a podcast magazine of sorts. It’s great because I’m listening to a whole bunch of podcasts I’m typically subscribed to on iTunes through Wilson since it’s on topic. I don’t need to search for another one after one’s finished. And I wind up actually listening to the podcasts on Wilson. I also really like the UI and cover graphics for each collection.
Are.na
I’ve made a ton of discoveries on Are.na through its explore feature. I’ve started using it more after being beaten to death with algorithmically served imagery that’s similar across Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram. If it’s trending on one of the platforms, it’s most likely trending on all. It was very refreshing to stumble into new discoveries on Are.na. It’s replaced the serendipitous discovery I use to get from surfing the old web. They have a great browser extension that allows me to collect things as I move across the web. The granular permissions around boards and groups are also great collaboration features you don’t get with Pinterest.
VVatch.tv
I’ve been following Marc Kremers’ VVatch and started using it recently. I like some of the curated playlists I’ve seen on there already but need to spend more time with it. It’s an interface on top YouTube videos. The way VVatch playlists differ is that viewers can watch the same video at the same time, just like classic broadcast TV. The way it works is videos play the same sequence of videos to everyone, with the play head being in the same position on the current video down to a couple of seconds. To keep channels feeling fresh and serendipitous, VVatch randomly reorders the channel’s videos every 24 hours for you.
Canopy is a new tool to search for products, all hand-curated of course. I use to love surfing Svpply. It had a small handful of curators before eBay bought it and shut it down. Ben Pieratt made verygoods.co as a replacement which works well to find new stuff. Canopy differs from Svpply or Verygoods in the fact that all products on Canopy are from Amazon. So instead of getting the forever ugly data-driven Amazon interface and it’s algorithmic recommendation engine you get a more uncluttered experience with human curators. I still think Canopy can pair back its interface a little bit more, but I still like the experience.
By no means are algorithms going away and I’m not advocating that they should. It’s good to take a break from them as it’s nice to have the human touch and some manual curation. As in a lot of matters of taste and creativity algorithms can only do so much.
Disclaimer: I am an investor in Are.na because I love the product. Was a user prior to being an investor.
