Breaking free from the filter bubble

By now you probably have heard of the online filter bubble. You probably feel unease by the sheer number of people being encased in a filter bubble and concerned that you yourself might be trapped in one and would like to get out from your filter bubble. Let me tell you that the filter bubble is nothing new – it exists in another form before the Internet became mainstream and you can use age-old method to escape being trapped inside a filter bubble.

How to create a news show from a Twitter stream.

You can add a Twitter stream or any search result as a feed source for News Anchor channels. This is done by exporting a Twitter search result as an RSS feed.

Do you know that you can turn any Twitter stream into RSS feeds? Better yet, not only Twitter timelines from someone, but you can get just about any Twitter search result as RSS feeds and use them in News Anchor or any other RSS reader (yes, even Google Reader).

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

Adaptive algorithms created to personalize web experiences may have the downside of creating “filter bubbles” that limits one’s world-view.

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.