More chatter about Particls

A whole set of blog posts have sprung up last couple of days about the need for a tool like Particls.

Alex Iskold on RWW writes:

"We need a tool, an assistant, that understands our processes, understands what we are doing, when we change tasks and when we finish them. It needs to be with us everywhere - on and off line and on the go. As much as possible, this tool needs to help us juggle our tasks and restore the context, recall and store information and make our life easier for us. This is not Artificial Intelligence, this is basically a glue for all the things that we are trying to juggle and ways we are trying to juggle them."

In response a number of others have chimed in:

• A rash of good writing
• Moving toward machine processing---the certain destiny of web evolution
• Continuous Partial Attention

This is exactly the goal of Particls. We are not quite there yet - but it's certainly a worthy goal.

Media 2.0 Workgroup Launch - Continued

Wow... a lot of people are talking about the workgroup announcement at the moment which is great.

Here's a summary of the posts and reactions for you.


Christopher Kenton - Marketing Rev

"Currently, the working group’s web site provides an aggregated feed of articles and postings from more than a dozen industry voices–a list that is apparently growing rapidly after the buzz from it’s launch today. Given the growing excitement around social media and it’s impact on marketing, this promises to be important listening post for emerging ideas and trends.

Paul Montgomery - TinFinger (my personal favorite)

"Today marks the launch of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, following in the prestigious footsteps of such towering, industry-changing, juggernaut organisations as the Web 2.0 Workgroup. The members of such elite inner circles as as gods to us puny mortals, and through their shared workgroup activities they wield such fearsome collective power that entire countries are laid waste in their paths."

Paul your wit never ceases to amuse ;)

Marshall Kirkpatrick

"Looking for some insightful new voices to read in the blogosphere? Check out the just launched Media 2.0 Workgroup - a very cool aggregation of some smart, engaged bloggers."

Jeneane Sessum - Allied

"So in my new role, I promise you, dear readers and friends and detractors, that I will try to use my power for good, not evil, and that means I will construct my meanderings using the broadest interpretation of what Media 2.0 means. Or doesn't mean.

We came here to tell stories, didn't we? Yes we did! Once upon a time, we were the wedia media pedia, weren't we? Yes, we were! And with the web 2.o pony beaten just shy of the glue factory, I'm looking for new rides, higher slides, longer strides. So let's find some together! Are you with me?"

Stowe Boyd

"I don't agree with Chris that the Web 2.0 meme is "a little worn out", but I do agree with the importance of media 2.0 as an area of inquiry."

It's ok Stowe - you can disagree with me - as long as you concede I was right in the first place :)

Frantic Industries

"As far as the name and the concept go, I must admit that I’ve personally never thought of the Web 2.0 phenomenon outside the boundaries of the Web. [..] Looking at it this way, it’s probably a subset, and not a superset of Web 2.0; however, it’s still an interesting topic to discuss. Social content, social news, and citizen journalism - all themes that are very frequently covered on this blog - are tied both to the traditional media and to the web, so I guess that pushing “Media 2.0″ as a concept does make sense."

I would argue that the Web is only one form/medium of Media. There are others that are far older and more entrenched in our way of lives and others still that are still emerging and evolving. So the goal of Media 2.0 is to broaden the Web 2.0 conversation and put it into context.

Strange Attractor - Suw Charman

"[...] when you think about it. We've already had New Media, but it's clear that New Media isn't keeping up with the incredibly rapid development of the web and Web 2.0. New Media is antiquated, obsolete. Any business that pats itself on the back because they have some sort Head of New Media needs a kick up the butt and a lesson in Media 2.0."

On a personal note
I am a little overwhelmed by the fact that it seems that everyone blogged about the launch credited me as the single handed mastermind. I can honestly say I did not expect, nor do I deserve credit for it all. We are honored to be keeping such prestigious company.

I'd like to publicly thank everyone for getting involved - especially those who really helped get out the word and invite people into the group from the very beginning when it was just a crazy nugget of an idea.

Daniela Barbosa
Ben Metcalfe
Marianne Richmond

Thanks Guys and Gals (got it right this time Daniela).

Touchstone/Attention Coverage Grows

It seems like 2007 really is the year of Attention. Everyone's talking about it. And I am very gratified that they think to mention us when they do.

Ian Forrester over at Cubic Garden wrote a wonderful review of the Alpha and APML (not wonderful in that it was all positive, but wonderful in that it was constructive, thoughtful and has helped us identify his personal rough spots). I am very interested in Ian's Pipelines idea as well. As he suggests, Touchstone's architecture could actually be considered a pipeline. We have always thought about it (from the earliest diagrams on napkins) as 'Inputs, Processing, Outputs'.

John Tropea has also posted a review about Touchstone. In typical John fashion he has gone into great depth about the applications and comparisons for the technology. He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the RSS/Tools landscape.

Daniella Barbosa from Factiva/Dow Jones is always insightful - from her commentary on enterprise information tools through to great videos about unwrapping presents for Michael Arrington - she always brings a smile to my day.

Her latest post "Standing for Attention in the Enterprise" is no exception. She mentions that in the past year, enterprise users have gone from asking 'What is RSS' to 'How can we handle all this RSS we need to read'.

She goes on to post:

So something that i know i will be talking about in 2007 is... Attention

And i won't be the only one paying attention to 'Attention'i had already started this post on Attention and i remembered that in my inbox was a note from Greg Narian with the subject title 'Continuous Partial Postponement?' that i had seen coming in this morning but had not clicked through before i left for my appointments. It is an interesting look at two sides of the attention theme. The first one Continuous Partial Attention - constantly needing to be connected so we don't miss anything, the second is what we lose when as we constantly postpone one thing to get to the next. Kathy Sierra also has a good post on the problem of continuous partial attention from early December that links to multiple posts she has made about user behavior due to attention issues.

She also kindly mentions Touchstone and APML as key examples of emerging tools to help with the deluge.

Of course there are many others as well... we really appreciate the feedback guys - it keeps us all motivated and focused on making Touchstone as great as possible.