For whatever reason, Web 3.0 and reducing noise has been the big topic recently. Everyone seems to be in love with the social aggregators, especially FriendFeed. I have to admit that I am becoming increasingly addicted to FriendFeed. If you use something like FriendFeed or even Twitter, you have seen the deluge of information. Most likely, the deluge has come from Robert Scoble on Twitter or others like him. I do not mean to dump on Scoble, but he is probably the most active and most popular tech person that people know by name. The problem with following several of your “normal” friends, and then several “pundits” is that you may lose updates from those people you care most about. So, what do you do about it?

FriendFeed does have some nice filtering capabilities that has made it a little easier, but you probably do not want to stop following people, or ignoring a service as a whole. As TechCrunch put it, Web 3.0 Will Be About Reducing Noise. I am not sure I agree entirely with their statement, however I believe they are on the right track. Ian Kennedy talks about how the Lifestream Filter Will Be The Next Great Algorithm War. I think he is a little closer to the target when he says:

The huge opportunity ahead is a filter to bubble up the things you need to know without missing anything you want to know.

Lastly, Social|median relaunched recently as a personalized news filter. They are merging the ideas of social networks, think Ning, and social news, think Digg. I say Ning for social networks, because the site allows you to create networks around the news that you want to read. It is an interesting idea, but I do not think it is enough either.

However, look at the three ideas presented. First, we want to reduce noise. Second, people like the lifestreaming services but better filtering is needed. Third, we want to read only what we want to know about. This could be where the semantic web idea has its sweet spot. Part of the semantic web is about data and its relationships across websites. That sounds a lot like what the lifestreaming services do. However, the semantic web really links the data as opposed to just dumping on your screen. Most of the semantic websites are talking about learning your interests based on what you read, like and share. If the technology is good enough, the noise gets reduced because the service will provide recommendations for you. So, what do we want?

My best guess is that I want Twine‘s technology, FriendFeed’s interface and the ability to import my friends from all of my other social services (probably Twine’s biggest drawback). If someone provides all of this, they could be the next Google.