The compass of cyberspace
I resisted using Instant Messenger-like programs for a long time. I din't think that I wanted people to be able to get at me night-and-day and I wasn't sure that there was anyone out there that I needed to talk to faster than email and slower than cell phone. Am I so jaded that I needed this kind of interactive email?
But finally I broke down last year and started using AIM and immediately realized something interesting--IM gives you presence detection. Knowing my friends and family enough to have a general idea of what they're up to means that when I see them pop up in IM, I know where they are--roughly.
This idea is being underutilized right now. There's enormous benefit in having people in a trusted group knowledgable about where you and what you're up to. I thought this decades ago when I first started using vacation messages on email.
I envision this concept of presence detection expanded throughout the Internet and maybe even tied in to mobile devices. I'm not sure that we all want to be GPS located most of the time (I don't), but it's to our advantage for those close to us to know what we're doing.
Posted on November 13, 2006
