Foursquare co-founder: How to stop worrying about data overload and love

Foursquare co-founder: How to stop worrying about data overload and love



As the proportion of people increasing amount of information online, we are moving towards a future of data overload? Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of the share location Foursquare popular applications, said there was no stopping the flow of data - but that does not mean users have to drown.

Selvadurai made the remarks today at a panel discussion at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin. VentureBeat Owen Thomas, who was the moderator, he complains that he is constantly bombarded by reports of all their different social mobile applications, such as placement verification friends, share photos, and so on. Owen asks: will it get worse?

"The technology makes it very easy to capture this information so that we can build applications that allow you to save this information in" Selvadurai said. It is not going to change soon, he added - the technology is only going to do more of these data over time. "The next step is to build a better interface and better algorithms to filter the data."

In other words, you can still see a stream of mobile applications, but they must work harder to help users find information on the social aspects that are truly relevant to them, instead of feeding each update day of every friend.

Later, Owen asked if a certain type of information: Constant, "passive" data on the location of the user. Will we get to a point where you just turn the Foursquare user or another application and tell their friends when they all the time, no check-in? Selvadurai seemed skeptical. He noted that there are different layers of data on the location of person and that information only becomes useful when you go over these layers. In a system of exchange rates, users will probably send their GPS coordinates, which are not so interesting for most of their friends. Even a bare-bones address is not that interesting.

The information is really useful when connecting to their position in a specific place - such as F-Lounge at the Hilton Austin, where the group took place. Selvadurai has recognized that the sharing of passive location data could be useful, along with check ins, but this is not a replacement.