Twitter creates one of the best interfaces possible for a person to filter through messages. 140 characters is a big part of that, but I think profile pictures

Twitter creates one of the best interfaces possible for a person to filter through messages. 140 characters is a big part of that, but I think profile pictures play a pretty serious role in that too. I can go through a massive number of tweets in a pretty short time. I see quickly who tweeted it, and I see any interesting keywords. This problem comes up in so many different areas, and it is a non-solution that works so well. The take away should be that the best way to filter a firehose of data for human consumption is to have a source indicator that is very quick for a person to parse, and a limited set of keywords.