First tweak to MyHub.ai, more to come (newsletter)

Since my last enewsletter I've spent the pandemic reading, thinking, writing and corresponding with people around the world about how MyHub.ai should evolve.

Among the results: I've been asked to contribute a chapter setting out my vision of MyHub.ai's future to an upcoming book on Personal Knowledge Management. I'll make the writing process as interactive as possible so I can source ideas and more from as many people as possible, so connect with me on Twitter (and, soon, Mastodon) if you want to join in.

More on that in the next edition. In this one: a first tweak to the default navigation phrase, a look ahead to the next changes, and some of the things I've recently read (and written) influencing my ideas for MyHub.ai.

Your Hub's home: "All the" is now the default

We recently tweaked the navigation phrase so that your Hub's default home page shows "All the" resources on your Hub, rather than just "The Best" (ie, the ones you Highlighted).

This is for the many Hub editors who had no bookmarks to import, and so early on faced what one of them dubbed "Empty Hub Syndrome" - unless you had already Highlighted some resources, visitors to your Hub were met by an empty homepage.

As a result FAQ: Why is my Home Page empty? is now deprecated, while FAQ: How does my Hub’s search and browse work? has been updated.

Next up

We are working on:

• a share tool: located next to the navigation phrase, it will create an easy-to-share natural language description of, and link to, the current collection of resources. Slicker social media integration will come later
• 'search fortag': filtering resources by tag will become a lot easier once we've added this autocomplete-driven text entry field - enter a few letters and it will find any relevant tags for you
• Overviews: this is an upgrade to the Categories in your navigation phrase's dropdown list so that they resemble Service Pages. It will both simplify the system and make MyHub.ai a better personal knowledge management tool.

Recommended reading

A few resources I've found particularly interesting as I plan MyHub's evolution.

All are tagged myhub, and most appear in my Thinking Tools Overview, as transforming your Hub's content management system into a Thinking Management System - a Personal Knowledge Graph with integrated content productivity and creativity support tools - is central to tomorrow's MyHub.ai.

(About) Andyʼs working notes (Andy Matuschak)

From my notes: 'Andy Matuschak's working notes "are mostly written for myself: they’re roughly my thinking environment... But I’m sharing them publicly as an experiment ... [see] Work with the garage door up." This encapsulates what I've been exploring since launching my first Hub on Tumblr in 2013'.

More: Andy's site struck me so strongly I added an Andy Matuschak tag and then created a dedicated Overview.

The Future of Search Is Boutique (a16z)

From my notes: 'starts to unpack for me my ideas of what millions of Hubs networked together and co-processed by AI would offer the world in terms of content discovery... "Rather than try to "organize the world’s information... [we should] organize the world’s trustworthy information" - more likely when you combine the curation efforts of millions of people whose own credibility depends on the content they curate.'

More: also tagged curation and trust: These disinformation researchers saw the coronavirus 'infodemic' coming

What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

From my notes: 'ActivityPub "users don’t need an account on every platform... if Mastodon user A follows PeerTube user B, B's new videos will appear in A's Mastodon feed. A can even comment on it from Mastodon. The more platforms adopt ActivityPub, the more valuable it becomes for more platforms to join in... But it still faces the empty train syndrome."

More: Overview: Fediverse

Simplifying Zettelkasten by working out loud (me)

From November 2020: "What did I learn about learning as I explored using Zettelkasten idea and knowledge management to write five newsletters about disinformation in the 2020 US elections?"

Since writing this, of course, I've changed my mind: the new version of MyHub will allow you to do your thinking in private if you want, before choosing to share selected pieces with the rest of the world via your Hub.

More: Overview: Zettelkasten