Bullish: Curation and filter bubbles with Product Hunt’s Ryan Hoover

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After years of tweeting back and forth with Product Hunt Founder Ryan Hoover, I finally met him IRL when he came in to talk about curation with me for Bullish.

“In a world where we’re having so much being created, whether it’s apps, chrome extensions even music, books, podcasts, etc. there’s a greater need for curation,” Hoover told me.

Meanwhile, everyone has different interests and the context around how you discover things can change the way you perceive the value or experience that content, Hoover said. Taking music as an example, you might appreciate a song more if a close friend recommends it versus an algorithm displaying it prominently on your screen. That said, there’s value in both algorithmic and human-driven curation.

“There’s no perfect balance,” Hoover said. “Algorithmic is not the be all end all. Socially driven curation is not the be all, end all.”

We also chatted about the filter bubble, and getting trapped inside of it. On Twitter, your feed is based on who you follow, and the people you follow likely have similar interests and opinions.

“The risk is over time we start building better and better algorithms and so you actually only see a subset of things that are only really confirming your own bias, potentially,” Hoover said. “That’s a really fascinating trend and also a risk in the long term evolution of how we communicate and how we socially interact with people.”

Watch the full episode to hear more about curation.