My Own Pirate Radio

The global “really good stuff” list

Click here to see a global list. (Of course, this will only become interesting if other people recommend items using the technique I use here. So get busy!)

About

Above is a short list of recommendations I think are worthy of sharing with anyone with similar taste… literally, my “really good stuff” list. I intend to be judicious about what I list here. I’ll also keep the list short, capped at 10 items, so that I’m forced to weed out less favored items over time.

How to make your own “really good stuff” list

1. First set up a list of links on delicious, like I’ve done here.
2. Tag links as appropriate with the tags “my-shortlist” and “my-recommendations”, like I’ve done here.
3. Weed the list over time by keeping it short: I propose 10 items or less. Just remove the “my-shortlist” tag from your overflow items. (You will still be able to see the entire list by searching on he tag “my-recommendations”.)
4. To publish your list on a web page like I have above, use a del.icio.us linkroll. It’s easy to make the linkroll emit the subset of your links tagged with “my-shortlist”.
5. Tell other people about your recommendations list.

FAQ

Q: Why bother?
A: I like discovering and sharing cool new stuff. There are lots of information discovery tools out there that help you find lots-of-stuff, but few for discovering really-good-stuff. This tool is in the latter category: discovering just those few gems that are truly worth spending time on. It’s a cheap experiment to see whether sharing recommendations in this manner is useful.

Q: How is this different than any of the other recommendation and sharing services out there? For instance, what about collaborative filtering, the way FURL does it?

A1: This approach requires you to impose economy on what you’re recommending. I think the economy piece is important; we need more signal, less noise.
A2: This is about putting your personal reputation and intelligence behind recommendations. It means a lot to me that you think something is worthwhile, especially if I know you or know something about you.
Q: How is this better than any of the other recommendation and sharing services out there?
A: I’m not sure this is really better than anything else. It’s an experiment. The more people who participate, the more we’ll be able to see if it’s useful.