I just finished reading Barry Schwartz’s book “the paradox of choice; why more is less“.

The author suggests, that the more choices people have the more complicated it becomes for them to make a choice.

The popular series of studies “When choice is demotivating” [downloadable as *.pdf here] speaks for Schwartz’s argumentation.

In one of these studies, the researchers set up a display featuring a line of high-quality jams for customers to taste. If a customer boughta jar she would receive an one dollar coupon. I one condition of the study, the display had a variety of only 6 jams while on another condition there was a set of 24 varieties available.

Although the large array attracted more customers it only convinced the 3% of the customers to actually buy a jar. On the contrary 30% of the customers bought a jar from the small array.

The explanations for the results of this and other similar studies vary:

• a large array of options may discourage consumers because it forces an increase in the effort in making a decision.

• a large array of options reduces the attractiveness of the product.

Barry Schwartz examines the subject of choice by concentrating on 4 major subjects:

1. What drives people to choose

2. How do people choose

3. Why do people suffer from vast options

4. How can people stop suffering from choice

Choosing not to choose

The paradox of choice can be applied to many fields of our life and the virtual world is also included.

The number of blogs and sites which constitute the web is certainly overloading people, which in the end conclude on reading the big hubs and refrain from searching and choosing.

It is a fact, that I also notice in the way I surf the web lately.

I have chosen 3 social sites and a small number of blogs to follow and am no longer interested in searching for new possibilities. I prefer to settle with lesser quality, than striving to find the perfect resources.

I guess I’m what Barry Schwartz describes as a satisficer:

If you’re a satisficer, the number of available options need not have a significant impact on your decision making. When you examine an object and its good enough to meet your standards, you look no further; thus, the countless other available choices become irrelevant.

On the other hand though, there are also the maximizers:

Maximizers need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be made. Maximizers seek and accept only the best.

Anyway, this subject has drawn my attention lately; I’ve already written a post at pandemicBlog inspired by the book and will return with at least one more.

I finished developing the design for the Game Philosophy Conference.

The look and feel is not my work - I just did the coding. It is a simple site concentrating on content. See it in action at gamephilosophy.org

You can download the xhtml version here. Its features include:

• valid xhtml transitional

• valid CSS 2.1

• GNU GPL Licence

There is also a wordpress version here, if you’re interested.

It is not built for daily posts and typical blogging usage. Instead it uses the Content Management features of wordpress to easily update the body of the pages. It is basically meant for static pages, but with minor changes you can use it everywhere.

I’ve been lately very busy with several projects running at the same time. Result of this overload was, that I didn’t get the time to write any posts or even follow my subscriptions. When I opened my RSS Reader today, I had more than 500 articles waiting for me.

What I did to surpass this overload of information and work was to concentrate on specific services, blogs and aggregators. Sources, that I trust for the quality of information they provide.

Since social media have evolved in such a massive form of knowledge with no secure quality filter, information sources are mostly trusted individuals or niche social networks.

The return of the individual: FriendFeed & Toluu

One of the most popular services that puts the individual opinion at the center of attention is friendfeed.

A couple of days ago I joined a new invite-only service, which also concentrates on the power of the individual. Toluu lets you share your RSS feed with your friends. Instead of constantly reading the same blogs denying any diversity to your subscriptions (the RSS Curse) you can change once in a while by reading other feeds.

Although community plays an important role in Toluu, it is the role of the individual that gives the service meaning. You don’t need to have hundreds of friends, just some chosen few which you trust and share same interests.

In that sense, Toluu follows the basic principle behind FriendFeed.

For further information here are a couple of  interesting resources on Toluu:

• 10 Reasons why you are going to love Toluu

• An interview of the  Toluu founder

I still believe in the power of the collective intelligence. But correct aggregation of information is out of the question, when we are dealing with lack of diversity and biased opinions.

Lately it seems to me, that many social networks are in that position where information are chosen by the most connected and popular individuals.

Choosing your field of information: Get invited

As I noted above, I lately don’t have the time to scrouge through all these social networks, so I have decided to choose my battles.

I continue to be positively surprised by the quality of information in Twine. I’ve already given out more than 10 invitations, but magically the number of invitations at my hands increased.

So, if you’re interested in getting in Twine leave me a comment below and I’ll send you an invitation.

Toluu also provides to its members a limited number of invitations. I currently have only 3, so -again- if interested let me know.

And for those of you who scan the text and don’t actually read (which is fine by me) leave a comment if you want to:

• get invited in Twine (more than 10 invitations already given out)
• get invited in Toluu (3 invitations left)