How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
1–10 of 74 posts
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#2I'm really excited on what Mozilla is doing with Pocket and I hope it continues down that path. Currently my only gripe is that I cannot download the archived version of webpages I have and not easily make public link collections (atleast as far as I've seen), for which I currently use Shaarli...
Otherwise it's a cool product.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#3I'm nervous about a Pocket news feed in Firefox. The idea sounds promising, but in practice Pocket's Discovery feature surfaces a kind of pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Here's some of the stories my Pocket Discovery feed found for me today:
"Why your brain hates other people"
"The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself"
"You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix it"
"Fund managers warn a downturn is coming and it's going to be ugly"
"The dangers of belly fat"
It's lots of outrage & negativity, and I imagine it's because that's the kind of article people are actually reading & sharing, so that's what feeds the recommendation algorithms.
I don't mind if Pocket develops a personalized profile of my interests, but I'd like it to surface what I want to see. Right now YouTube does a better job of detecting my interest in music hardware & album production techniques than Pocket does.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#4I'm nervous about a Pocket news feed in Firefox. The idea sounds promising, but in practice Pocket's Discovery feature surfaces a kind of pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Here's some of the stories my Pocket Discovery feed found for me today: "Why your brain hates other people" "The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself" "You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix…
I think there might be a point where recommendation algorithms kind of 'overfit'/become a filter bubble. I remember reading a article about the youtube recommendation algorithm led to increasingly more radical videos until you end up on 'that weird side' of youtube (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po...). Depends entirely on what metric you are trying to opimize, I guess. With youtube is probably something like "time spent on the site". If you want non-sensational content instead you should probably read papers on arxiv or something.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#5I'm nervous about a Pocket news feed in Firefox. The idea sounds promising, but in practice Pocket's Discovery feature surfaces a kind of pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Here's some of the stories my Pocket Discovery feed found for me today: "Why your brain hates other people" "The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself" "You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix…
I think there might be a point where recommendation algorithms kind of 'overfit'/become a filter bubble. I remember reading a article about the youtube recommendation algorithm led to increasingly more radical videos until you end up on 'that weird side' of youtube ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po... ). Depends entirely on what metric you are trying to opimize, I guess. With youtube is p…
> If you want non-sensational content instead you should probably read papers on arxiv
I do the YouTube equivalent and watch mostly educational channels: minutephysics, numberphile, 60 symbols, cgp grey, 3 blue 1 brown, spacetime, veritasium, codyslab, physics girl, etc. computerphile for checking my layman's terms explanations of computer concepts.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#6Why can't my web browser just browse the web? Why does it need to be a news feed as well?
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#7I tried to switch back to Firefox, but my password manager (lastpass) doesn’t work correctly, I guess the new extension APIs are too restrictiy. So, Chrome it is.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#8I'm nervous about a Pocket news feed in Firefox. The idea sounds promising, but in practice Pocket's Discovery feature surfaces a kind of pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Here's some of the stories my Pocket Discovery feed found for me today: "Why your brain hates other people" "The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself" "You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix…
I think there might be a point where recommendation algorithms kind of 'overfit'/become a filter bubble. I remember reading a article about the youtube recommendation algorithm led to increasingly more radical videos until you end up on 'that weird side' of youtube ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po... ). Depends entirely on what metric you are trying to opimize, I guess. With youtube is p…
For some reason YouTube assumes I really like Mariya Takeuchi - Plastic Love and recommends it from almost every video I watch. A look at the comments suggests I'm not the only one this happens to.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#9I'm nervous about a Pocket news feed in Firefox. The idea sounds promising, but in practice Pocket's Discovery feature surfaces a kind of pseudo-personalized clickbait that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Here's some of the stories my Pocket Discovery feed found for me today: "Why your brain hates other people" "The most hated Bachelor in America explains himself" "You're doing Scrum wrong and here's how to fix…
But even if it is tailored to your liking, you'll also suffer from a worse bubble than we all already suffer from.
Re: How Firefox is using Pocket to try to build a better news feed than Facebook
#10Pocket seems fairly incompatible with Firefox - claims to be client side yet requires a login and does not work if cookies are disabled...