As mentioned in [Ben Thompson’s article on Unbundling](https://stratechery.com/2017/the-great-unbundling/) - the original model of consumption has been for organizations to integrate content and then distribute it. ![[bundling.png|600]] Currently, instead of bundling information for a large group of consumers and then distributing it to them (e.g. newspapers), we are now creating personalized feeds of information. We are doing something you could call ‘continuous personalized bundling’; as we use media apps, our preferences are recorded and used to serve us information more tailored to us. Through social media based consumption of information like on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, we are kind of directing our own information diet through our preference profiles and the people we follow. You follow, like and repost content and that in turn informs these companies about your preferences and intents. There are a few issues with this particular implementation of ‘personalized preference profiles’ though; - They are based on what you **like** **but not what you want for yourself.** They tend to reinforce unhealthy feedback loops. - You don’t actually know what Instagram etc think you like right now - You couldn’t directly influence them even if you found out what they were ( - The information they serve changes us slowly but surely, and we don’t seem to like the way it does Though these profiles do a great job of serving us content that keeps us hooked, they do a pretty bad job of serving us content that keeps us **growing**. That’s not because these companies want to limit our growth per se, but because they simply aren’t in that business. They are entertainment companies. They are in the business of delivering content that gets consumed. And that’s a good thing! The world would be boring and mundane without entertainment. There is absolutely no need to sacrifice entertainment when we consume content that helps us grow. But to get more entertaining content that helps us grow, we need better tools. Those tools, in turn, can be used by companies to better integrate our preferences. All we have to do, over time, is save the content we believe helps us grow. That process can be fun and rewarding. By building Integrate, I hope to slowly but surely give everyone that wants to learn something - a fairly big group I might add - the control over what types of information they choose to embed into their minds and lives. We read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos, read interesting messages, browse web pages and learn from long-form articles. If we, as individuals, would be able to **consolidate** **the information that we actually found helpful**, and then gently resurface similar information throughout our browsing experiences, it would at least give us the chance to control a bit what is served to us. And we could have transparent AI help us select the next thing to learn to help us move forward most productively, using neuroscience-backed models to select the optimal learning journey. In a more distant future, the profiles built up based on the content we have **chosen** to integrate, can be used by third parties to give us the information we actually want. They can be used to give LLMs or AI assistants the information about us that helps them help us, which helps our users. The earlier in life we start with collecting sets of information that reflects us, personally, the better we can develop tools that actually help us further. ## From current media to integrated media Media apps like Instagram and Twitter/X have taken over an important role of what originally was TV and newspaper. We have felt that. - They keep us informed (Twitter, Substack) - They provide somewhat educational content (YT, threads, Instagram posts) - Provide sporting/entertainment (sports, memes, opinions, politics) - Tell stories (YouTube videos, TikTok) - Offer escapism (doom scrolling, general entertainment of feeds) It’s a cocktail of content to serve these purposes. What makes these mediums different from TV, is _choice_. We have so much choice, that preference profiles are the best way to optimize what content gets delivered. The problem with platforms like Twitter is that UCG tends to quickly transpile into junk food content. That’s because the rating systems in UCG platforms often reinforce our unhealthy habits rather than our healthier ones. With Integrate, I hope to make it possible to extract the most relevant information from all these channels, and extract related content and information such that you train Integrate to surface what you desire. We can also integrate with reader apps you use - like Readwise Reader or Pocket - to surface content that best fits the stuff you want to integrate more. We can also link to people’s Substack or other newsletter / medium.