The Information Stack
I came across the internet in the early 1990s, while studying journalism. Nobody quite knew what to make of it. I thought it was not just a new medium, but an opportunity to leverage technology so that anyone could stay genuinely informed about what matters to them.
The world took a different turn. What we got instead was an attention economy built on siloed platforms and black-box algorithms optimised for engagement rather than understanding.
The consequences are felt by individuals, organisations, and society at large. I’m working on alternatives at both levels, and The Information Stack is where the thinking, the building, the connections and the conversation come together.
The newsletter
Information ecosystems, cognitive resilience, collaborative filtering, and the practicalities of staying informed. For information professionals, technologists, policy makers, business leaders, and anyone who cares about the quality of information coming in and going out.
Cluetail Discover™
Information monitoring, discovery and curation for knowledge-intensive organisations, teams and professionals. From tracking trends, news, thought leaders and competitors to surfacing the sources you didn’t know you were missing.
Siftler: A better feed
Between the reverse-chronological firehose and the black-box algorithm optimised for engagement and data capture, there is a better option. A feed that is personalised without profiling, relevant without manipulation, and transparent enough for users to understand and control.
Let’s make Siftler the open-source, collaboratively filtered alternative. The kind that users actually want, and that the EU’s Digital Services Act calls for from platforms.
We are looking for developers, platform operators, researchers, democracy advocates and financial enablers. If that’s you, let’s talk.
When the prompt is the code
I am not a software developer. I’ve always depended on others to translate my concepts into code, with all the communication gaps that this inevitably involves. Until recently, when I started engineering an AI prompt to emulate Siftler’s core logic.
My prompt is not a tool to generate code; it is the algorithm itself, expressed in procedural natural language. It is a fast prototype, a validation tool, a way to communicate functional requirements for a public, AI-free Siftler, and a way to serve information monitoring and discovery needs today.