Chris Shipley is moderating a panel with Dick Hardt (Sxipper) and Sam Huleatt (Workstreamer) on applications that support flow. Chris turns the time over to Dick who demos Sxipper (the new version) that provides information about things your browsing. This reminds me of something I saw at ETech years ago called Dashboard (Nat Friedman). Ultimately this is an idea about getting context about information.

Can flow applications make the problem worse by increasing the amount of information we have to process? Possibly. UI helps. Flow applications need to be intelligent about what information is presented. Presence and location information help. Flow apps tend to be wrappers for "everything else."

Who sets the metric for filtering? Flow apps can make use of social relationship in information passing. The social layer is a great filter. Who do you follow on Twitter? They're your filters. I used to do this with blogs, but there's not so much happening there now. Twitter is a better source now. Followers/following is a new model for information sharing.

Filters can be dangerous. They lead to echo chambers if not properly managed. How can you find new ideas? The word "filter" is maybe a misnomer. We might want more of something. It's easier to recommend things that are relevant than to "find" things that aren't.