(2005-04-30) Boyd Nerdvana Buddy List Anchored Messaging

Stowe Boyd describes a "Nerdvana" Buddy List-Anchored Messaging (Universal Toolbox, Social Media) system he'd like to see. *Basically, EMail is pretty good at communicating with people when you don’t know them well, or people you don’t know at all. All you need is their email address and your emails will be treated pretty much like anybody else’s. But as a result, email doesn’t really do very much to help with the highest valued communication: communicating with the known. That’s where the paradigm of buddies, and the gated communities of instant messaging networks excel. But even technologies that I think are more useful in remaining in close contact with your circles of friends and colleagues don’t necessarily work together very well, if at all.

So, I decided to mockup an example of what a good unified client might offer someone like me, so I could sit in one tool all day long, choosing the appropriate communication, collaboration (Collaboration Ware), or coordination channel based on the context.

Basically, Nerdvana takes the IM concept of a buddy list and extends it to include all sorts of media.*

2008 update: Communications nerdvana was exactly what Greg Narain and I had proposed to AOL at the beginning of 2007. I was approached by various folks then working there, based on a series of posts I had written in 2006 and 2005. We kicked off a project, and designed a solution that has never been built, but I think some of its features — although geared in principle to a large instant messaging network like A[[IM]] — could help the conceptual mess we seem to be getting into with these conversational matrix applications. I offer these observations in open discourse, although if anyone would like to get our help, I am sure that Greg is as open to it as I am... The RssAggregator model might seem to be almost the same, but it treats people as sources of RSS, which is the wrong layer of abstraction. People are conversational engines, and can opt to converse through any number of media, and these should be blended into a person’s conversational flow. RSS readers generally do not support conversation, and may not even support finding them when they are happening, which is why reading Techmeme is often more illuminating that Google Reader.

2012 update: AOL Slashes Staff at A[[IM]] Unit; Wider Cuts Expected... I think AOL blew a great chance.