I am kind of imagining a Twitter-like hub service of the future. Short, sharp, “what’s up in your world” messages: “you’ve a new email from Des”, “Jim’s just got some cool sofas” or “Jason invites you for a beer in Beijing”. Funnelling everything through a constrained service— Twitter allows you just 140 characters to make your point —means it would not be overwhelming. Just a tap on the shoulder, a polite note via text to your phone (or whatever the future’s short messaging service is). There’s no need to read your email now, but we just thought you’d like to know you have a couple waiting. Your buddy is having a barbeque like, right now, get some beers and head on over. Ubiquitous connectivity without being overpowering.
Online social networks | Everywhere and nowhere is a recent article from The Economist. It prompted me to think on the elephant in the room for social network sites: their business model involves trapping people within their walls, whilst social interaction has a nasty habit of occurring wherever and whenever it can. This is a source of tension for social networking sites; they are trying to keep their users contained, whilst the users wish to break out.
When we meet someone there is a complex dance whilst we “get to know them”. One of the core activities during this period is generating trust between oneself and the other person. Self-disclosure plays a large part in creating this trust. Self-disclosure is the act of telling people about yourself; disclosing information to the other person. Initially these disclosures are small: musical tastes, favourite films and so on. As we gain more trust in the other person, these disclosures become more personal; say, a problem at work.
I woke up this morning to find a number of ladybirds had decided to colonise my window pane and surround:
I left the window open and it looks like they’ve all managed to escape now!
Almost a month ago now, I moved flats. I’m now living with a friend, Des, rather than on my own. I’m adapting well to this change of living arrangements, though initially it was strange sharing a flat with someone again!
The new flat is around five minutes walk from my old flat, so no major movements.
The building is a nice big old Victorian building. It lives up to its name of “Mansions” much more so than a house I lived in a few years ago. If you follow the link to flickr, I’ve added a note for the window belonging to our flat.