Earlier today I read Cities and Ambition, a post by Paul Graham. I simply posted it to Delicious, as I often do with anything which I would like to read again someday. My Delicious feed is syndicated to a number of places, including Facebook. Within an hour, a few friends wrote me to thank me for pointing out the article.
Last week I had a call with a startup CEO who welcomed me back from vacation. I was taken aback until he explained that he knew I was back from vacation because I made mention of the fact earlier in the day on my blog.
A few weeks ago I shared the fact via Twitter that I was at Coupa Cafe in downtown Palo Alto working remotely. One friend dropped by to say hello and another sent me an SMS to ask me if I was still there (I wasn’t).
Privacy issues aside, there is something *really* big going on here. In the past I would likely have read Paul’s article and added a bookmark to my browser and it would have ended there. If I really liked the article, I may have sent an email to 10-20 of my friends. Some friends would have appreciated the email, while others would have been annoyed with me for passing it on. Unfortunately, those unhappy with me would have likely said nothing.
Today the article was syndicated to over 1500 contacts by Delicious through Facebook. Those with interest opted in to the post while everyone else ignored it. While I may have passed on one article per month in the past, today I passively share a much larger quantity of content.
As long as we can keep the signal-to-noise-ratio high, the future of online communications will bifurcate into “active” and “passive” communications. Active communications will include anything which cannot be missed while passive communications will include everything else. Excluding SPAM, I would estimate that about 25% of my email should be moved into the passive category. And I’m sure that non-professionals like students would have a much higher number.
Perhaps in the future I will be able to flag both SPAM and identify the types of communications which aren’t SPAM, but should be moved to the passive category (e.g., Google Alerts, Apple new product updates) from my email client?
6 responses so far ↓
Robi Ganguly // August 4, 2008 at 12:23 am |
Hey Mike, I think you’re definitely tapping into something meaningful here. I think that Facebook is perhaps the current example that people think about the most when it comes to this issue: the News Feed is full of passive communications activities. I tend to think of it as “ambient social noise” in a digital environment.
What I would add to your post though, is that this is not a new human phenomenon. Passive communications have been with us for a long time. If I can find it again, I’ll share a story with you that I read a while back that made this point rather eloquently: gossip is a form of passive communications. Finding out about others in your community through gossip occurs rather naturally and happens as a result of an individual choosing to conduct a public enough life (i.e. you’re willing to share through Delicious) AND because we are interested in hearing about others’ lives, their activities, choices and relationships.
Humans are social animals and as the digital services that we interact with become better at incorporating this reality, the more we’ll see traditionally offline activities (most passive communications) occurring online. I would go so far as to say that what you’ve identified here is a large and obvious opportunity for the communications companies of the world. Not many of today’s companies seem to have this perspective, but I think it’s really valuable to the building of “what’s next”.
Ms. Single Mama // August 4, 2008 at 1:56 am |
Fantastic article.
As Avenue A/ Razorfish pointed out in their 2008 Digital Outlook report – distribution is about to trump destination.
The information has to reach people where they are online… it has to find them on websites they enjoy, like Facebook.
Destination websites are in trouble if they’re not using Twitter, blogging or Facebook.
Great post! Thank you!
therockblock // August 4, 2008 at 3:36 am |
Interesting…I like this. Thanks.
-Caitlin
Pages tagged "places" // August 4, 2008 at 11:18 am |
[...] bookmarks tagged places The future of communications is passive. « Laserl… saved by 4 others GundamsFreak bookmarked on 08/04/08 | [...]
Jonathan M // August 4, 2008 at 6:27 pm |
Cool post! I agree with you that there is something really, really big going on here.
The ideal semantic categorization technology can account for SNR, label spam, tag useful emails/information, and prioritize communications automatically.
This is what is happening right now on a small scale. Done to perfection, the communication pipes we use stop leaking, become unclogged, and information flows elegantly amongst all of us. That’s why its so exciting.. this is the point that we stop getting bogged down by complexity, and start to absorb the abundance of our collective experiences!
John Feeney // August 4, 2008 at 8:24 pm |
getting the message out today requires creative thinking and taking advantage of tools currently available. Many overlook the value of the content these messages are suppose to deliver. Which in turn miss the intended target.
There is a fine line between communicative ideas and advertisment. Getting others to accept your position not otherwise propagated by know authors or columnist’s can seem like an uphill battle. Your post points out a constructive way in utilizing a list. You take the road of acting as the clearing house. Which in turn adds credit too your name….good job..