Remember in The Matrix when information was displayed in code that fell across the screen? It seemed impossible to understand. Is the availability of information in real-time becoming equally difficult to understand? Twitter is working on opening up real-time access to user streams through their API. A beta version of TweetDeck has incorporated the real-time streams — does it give more information or too much?
Real-time Data
Here’s a video of what TweetDeck looks like with these real-time user streams from Twitter’s API (available in a beta version only):
(Thanks to Steven Hodson at The Inquisitr for mentioning this update and a link to the video.)
The Matrix of Code
To compare, here’s a version of The Matrix code:
Too Much Information?
Even without real-time streaming of information in Twitter, I already hardly ever look at my full feed. I use filters and searches and lists to be able to see who and what I’m watching for — having real time data may speed up those searches but I don’t want the full set of data.
Does real-time data give us more information or too much? What do you think?
(photo by Gregory Tonon)