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December 06, 2002

Spontaneous association

Matt picks up on a Jon Udell post, wherein Jon is challenged by a spam-block:

No ad-hoc communication is going to make it over that activation threshold... If we rule out spontaneous association then we will not have defeated the spammers. They will have defeated us.

To date I've refrained from commenting on the "private-IM-and-shared-spaces versus email" type of spin which sometimes appears around Groove, and this is as good a time as any to say why. IM, and shared activity spaces, won't completely replace email (no matter how bad the spam gets). The rest of my family receive zero spam, but as they increase their online activity that'll doubtless change. Even then, email will remain.

I'm rambling again, but here we go. There are a couple of parts to this:

1: For business communications, email will slowly be sidelined in favour of Groove (and lesser IM-type systems). The benefits of ubiquitous presence, ubiquitous authentication and private shared space are too great to ignore. Email-based systems integration (notification, alerts, workflow) will start using other platforms, too: IM, Groove, Web Services.

2: Spontaneous association has to happen. Communication will out. Email is the worst of all possible solutions for communication, but because it has 100% deployment, it'll continue to be used.

"Communication will out"

Wherever people get together - especially if they have a shared activity - they'll communicate using all means necessary. Using any means available within the context of that association.

In the pre-Napster days of MP3 file sharing, I remember seeing FTP servers where the local up- and down-loaders held threaded discussion conversations. Quite extensive discussions. Using... folders! Yes: someone would write a comment as the name of a new folder on the FTP site. Others would respond by creating sub-folders named for their comments. Any means available within the context.

The challenge - fundamentally a business challenge, and one which I think Groove is well suited to solve - is not to provide the raw communications channels, but to provide an appropriate context for interaction. Give people a good place to do things together, and then build tools around that place (that process, that activity) which afford rich communication.

Spontaneous association then becomes a question not of "how can I talk to x@y", but of "where can I be with x@y". Places, people, and then tools.