Blogging vs. Business

With so much time being spent on business development for Touchstone, the blog has been a little neglected. But there is lots of good news.

We are making moves to make the company stronger, and we now have a firm internal roadmap for public beta and then gold.

Now I just need to wait for a few things to be locked in before I can post specific details.

The competition has been going strong with submissions really showing the diversity of what can be done with an Attention Management Platform. It has been fun collaborating with each of the developers. If you have not yet started sending in your prototypes and ideas then you better get a move on - longer you leave it the harder it will be to catch up!

Making the right choices

In the past on this blog I have generally stuck to attention and software related issues because that's what was on my mind! But our intention has always been to cover all the ins-and-outs of this journey to create Touchstone.

As most of you know we have been getting lots of the right kind of 'Attention' (pun intended) lately and the business side of things has switched gears from 'finding ways to fund development' to 'choosing the right opportunities'.

It has been an interesting change. In these times you stop sending emails out and start trying to keep up with incoming emails. You stop hoping that an offer will come in and start having to decide which offer to select and who to trust with your future.

I always thought this would be a nerve wracking experience but I have discovered recently that when stuff starts to explode (in a good way) I seem to a very calm place where I let it all wash over me.

Making the right decisions has been and will be challenging - and having the right people to help will be key.

It has been a fun ride so far - will be interesting to see what comes next. I will try to keep you posted.

What's on the radio right now?

Just a quick note about a great site I saw via LifeHacker (actually Touchstone alerted me to the post on LifeHacker hah).

www.yes.com

It's a simple and stylish example of aggregated data visualized well.

It seems they have a custom toolbar for telling you what is playing on the radio. Perhaps they might be interested in making a Touchstone Input Adapter.

Touchstone Security and Privacy Policy

Ashley and I, as the two co-founders of Touchstone, have always had a policy that the user's privacy is of utmost importance to us. Touchstone's goal is to become one of those indispensible tools that you always download just after you do a clean install or set up your neighbors PC.

So with this in mind, we have always gone to great lengths to make sure that any features that impact personal privacy have an off-switch or explicitly inform the user of their rights and the intended behavior of the app.

We have also always had a Privacy Policy linked from inside the program. Today, however, I have updated it in anticipation of the next build's release.

You can find it here.

My favorite part is this:

Further, Touchstone's Attention Profile is stored in a human readable, documented format called 'IAM'. Your IAM file is located in your Touchstone installation folder in case you wish to see exactly what has been saved or use this file with supported 3rd-party sites and services.

I wonder if other sites and services can say the same?

This page will be linked from the download page, the alpha download page and inside Touchstone itself.

This is still in draft form so feel free to email me any questions or comments for inclusion.

Attention Landscape: Personal Relevancy for Alerting

Another in a series of articles I'm calling 'Attention Landscape'.

Applications of Personal Relevancy for Alerting
Tuning out the noise with Measured Disruption

With information reaching saturation point, time is the scarcest resource of our generation. The only way to better use our available time therefore, is to find ways to hyper-efficiently allocate our attention.

The best most pervasive example of hyper-efficient allocation of attention by a product or service has been Google. Google can determine your ‘current’ interests based on the keywords you type into their search box to deliver information matching your current focus of attention with uncanny accuracy. This type of attention might be called ‘Current Attention’.

The next challenge, however, is to allocate ones attention to information that may not be of current interest, but rather of ongoing or general interests to a user during their daily lives.

This type of attention might be called Ambient or Passive Attention.

Allocating Ambient Attention should be based on the ongoing interests of the user, the task their performing and the level of disruption the given piece of information deserves based on its personal relevancy (taking into account their level of interest and workload).

With this in mind, there are four technology challenges in the provision of Ambient Attention Management.

1. Personal recommendations
2. Task or activity based recommendations
3. Personal Relevancy
4. Measured disruption (Providing information in a way that reflects its immediate relevance)

Personal Recommendations
Information such as breaking news about world events that affect you, entertainment that interests you, people that are close to you and events that require your attention are all part of your ongoing interests.

In this case, what’s needed is a model of your previous articles of interest so that similar information can be crawled and recommend based on common themes and topics.

This type of approach has been built into services like Findory and Rojo and goes some way to collecting a broad range of content that is generally relevant to your interests and presenting it on the screen in a customized newspaper.

Task or activity based recommendations
While personal recommendations take into account what a user is generally interested in to find similar information that might be relevant, Task or Activity based recommendations consider what a user is currently doing to make recommendations for content that is relevant. Are they writing a document about Tree Frogs? Perhaps they would like to know all relevant research, statistics and news about Tree frogs?

This type of service would go some way to helping knowledge workers gather a context sensitive periphery view to their current work that might include previous resources from the corporate intranet, online research and statistics or even just images to pretty up their report.

Besides one or two low profile examples, this opportunity is largely untapped in the marketplace.

Personal Relevancy
While Personal Recommendations finds additional information that might be relevant to you personally. Task/Activity based recommendations finds information that is relevant to the task you are currently performing. Personal Relevancy is about determining the exact value of information to you at this very instant.

A Personal Relevancy algorithm should boil a number of factors down into a number that can be plotted along a fixed continuum from least relevant to most relevant. By plotting an item’s Personal Relevance against a know range, the user and/or a software agent can make intelligent decisions about the presentation of that item in order to maximize their time.

Measured Disruption
Explicitly subscribing to information you care about (E.g. RSS feeds), Personal Recommendations and Task/Activity based recommendations all converge to create a subset of the world that may interest you to one degree or another. The challenge remains, however, to find a way to consume this information in a way that allows you to maximize the time in the day. It would be simply impossible to keep track of all the information you care about if you were to stop and read every article about every topic related to your interests and activities.

Measured Disruption is about finding an approach to information delivery that consumes only the level of attention it deserves - in most cases it should be possible to provide information while you are performing other tasks.

This is achieved by taking a Personal Relevancy value and using it to make a presentation decision.

Is it background noise? Perhaps it should only form part of a passive backdrop (i.e. scrolling across a news ticker). Perhaps it is informative and deserves display on the bottom right of the screen so you can glance at it if you’re free. Perhaps it is time-sensitive and should follow your mouse around for a few seconds to make sure it catches your eye. Perhaps it is mission critical and requires your full attention and interaction.

In this way, Measured Disruption is about intelligently differentiating incoming information and presenting it in a full spectrum of attention appropriate formats.

This type of Attention Allocation is at the heart of the Touchstone Attention Management Platform. Its input adapters collect information from various sources (that could include explicit subscriptions, personal recommendations and activity based recommendations). Its Personal Relevancy Engine determines the level of importance of each item, and it invokes the right output adapter(s) for presenting the information to the user. Presentation styles vary based on the importance of the information.

Email sucks - False Positives

As many of you will know I had a little problem with Outlook 2007's spam filtering a little while back. It was too good in terms of keeping the spam out of my mailbox. It left me feeling out of touch with the passing of time - sort of like how you can tolerate high speeds in an elevator because you can't see outside. Does that make any sense?

But now I am going to say that Outlook 2007's spam filter is crap. Why? Well for a couple reasons.

1. It junks our invites for Touchstone. Ok maybe that might be excused. Maybe their poorly designed and maybe they are generated by a machine and hold some markers that attest to that fact but...

2. Since our recent TechCrunch review, my mailbox has been overflowing (more than usual) with real emails from real people with real opportunities or things to say to me. The problem though, is that more than a few of them have ended up in my Junk Email folder placed there by Outlook 2007's spam detection (btw if I have not responded to your email then please try again - it might have been spam filtered)!

Now sure, maybe I can put the sensitivity level down, but at the end of the day - when do we say that a system has failed? At what noise/signal ratio should we all decide to change technologies?

These days I ask most people to add me to Skype so that I can have less noise, more conversation and a better understanding of their timezone (sucks being in the southern hemisphere sometimes).

So can we declare email broken yet? Please?

Attention Landscape: Syndicated Value

Over the last few days and weeks I have been working on updating our Business Plan so that our partners and investors can get a detailed picture of our plans. As part of this document I am creating a series of articles that explain the changing media and technology landscape to those who might not follow it as closley as I do.

I will publish some of these over the next few days to see if anyone has any comments - I'd love to hear what you think!

I will call this series of posts 'Attention Landscape'.

Syndicated Value
Shifting value propositions in a changing media landscape

For publishers, the value of syndication is clear. Reach. The ability to reach users on their own terms and push (in perception terms, not technical terms) content into their preferred formats.

The value proposition for readers/listeners/viewers (for the sake of discussion lets just call them consumers), however, is far more subtle, complex and rewarding.

Discover
When content is syndicated it is necessarily placed in a structured format. Structured formats mean computers are able to better index, classify and search the information in order to help consumers discover the information that exactly matches their interests.

What’s more interesting, though, is that while consumers may choose to subscribe to a source they know and trust (i.e. CNN, TechCrunch or John Doe’s blog) they may also choose to discover individual posts that interest them from across a broad spectrum of sources without ever subscribing to any one of them.

Consume
In the past, consumption was limited to a single platform on a time limited basis. TV shows were on a specific channel, at a specific time. Missed it? Too bad (except for the re-runs of course). With syndicated content the consumption model changes dramatically.

Individual, self contained works exist free from publisher limitations and are now controlled by the consumer. They choose the packaging (the user interface), the timing (now, later, over and over) and the device (TV, PC, iPod, Mobile Phone – in a browser, full screen feed reader, alerting platform etc).

With the consumer controlling the discovery and consumption style of their media, the publisher has lost all power on publishing and distribution. The consumer, on the other hand, has gained the ability to get only the best of what they care about in a time and place of their choosing.

Remix and Share
Now that the consumer is discovering individual pieces of media they care about in a format they choose (separate from the original source and container) they have the power to remix and redistribute that content in any way they see fit. They can create their own stream of syndicated information mixed in with their own voice and delivered to friends, family and a growing fan base. The consumer has become a publisher. More accurately – they have become a participant.

The examples above (and others) show that Content Syndication actually tips the scales of power in favor of consumers turning us all into active participants in the media and publishing landscape. And the scales deserve to be tipped.

We each have a voice and a worthy story to tell. Our latest storytelling device is Syndication.

Marketplace Opportunities
The resulting marketplace opportunity in this shift is for the aggregators. Those that can effectively empower users to discover, consume, remix and share their media across publishers and platforms. Google got the ball rolling by allow us all to search across sites in a way that returned valuable and accurate results.

In the next wave of internet based innovation new platforms will need to focus on consumption and sharing.

The deafening silence has ended

I have Goosebumps. Thank god the silence has ended. Maybe the economy of ideas can start again. Maybe the truth can reveal the pathetic joke that has endured for so long. Olbermann's Special Commentary on Clinton Vs. Fox

It's all relevant

When you're developing a product (especially a piece of software) its always important to be clear about how you are different from the other guys. There is a lot of cynicism out there and people can be quick to dismiss an idea because they don't wait to hear the details.

But as they say, the devil... is in the details.

Imagine when Google was just starting up. One could have been forgiven for saying "The world does not need another search engine." - There were plenty of them. But while Google's service looked like every other service out there (a search box on a page) their implementation and resulting value proposition changed the world. What if an incoming link was a vote of confidence for a page? What a thought!

For us, we were concerned that people would confuse us with a Widget, or worse, a Gadget/Widget platform. Another concern was that people would confuse us with a Feed Reader.

But in the end, one can only plan so much - public reaction will always take on a life of its own. When that happens, you just have to clarify your message.

Judging from the TechCrunch reaction most people seemed to understand the power of Touchstone and its Personal Relevancy technology. I don't think Widgets or Gadgets were mentioned once!

But there are always those people who missed the key details that make it all unique and interesting. So I thought I would take the time (again) to answer the two biggest concerns (as far as I could tell).

1. "Why would I use Touchstone if I have already love my Feed Reader"
2. "How could I possibly be expected to configure all the keywords I want to filter"

Well..

1. For users who like their Feed Reader of choice, Touchstone does not replace it. It is a companion. You can read your news in your feed reader, and you can glance at Touchstone while your not in your feed reader. For many, however, using Touchstone as a way of staying informed while they work on their real job (a job that is probably NOT in IT) is more than adequate for their needs. Besides - RSS is not just about news reading.

2. Touchstone is not a keyword filter. It is an Attention Management Engine using Personal Relevance and Alerting as the key technology and presentation style. It can (with your permission) scan your computer (periodically) and create an automatic profile for what you care about. This information, along with other factors, allows Touchstone to RANK items; not Filter them. Because items are ranked, you/we can do much more interesting things with them than just filtering them out. Things like measured disruption.

Feeling the Crunch

One of the nice things about getting 'TechCrunched' is the resulting feedback from fellow information junkies and software enthusiasts who understand and appreciate the work you're doing.

So I thought I would share some of the best public comments made so far - there have been many more private emails but I don't want to quote them without permission.

First from Marshall from Techcrunch itself - his review was very generous and his enthusiasm for what we are doing was greatly appreciated (of course can't forget Ouriel who brought it to Marshall's attention!).

"I love RSS, I love IM and I love the concept of Attention Data. Wrap it all up together and put a just-in-time bow on top and what do you get? The Touchstone Attention Management Engine. I love it."

Next is Michael Mahemoff on his blog:

"Props to the Touchstone team for receiving funding, getting a glowing TechCrunch reception and generally heading in a positive direction... this is exactly the kind of situation where it makes sense to inject funds and build something big... There’s no standard like Growl on Windows, and Touchstone has every chance of becoming that standard - it would allow Growlish behavior and a whole lot more."

Some comments on the TechCrunch article itself.

From Tygh

"I have been lucky enough to get a sneak peek at Touchstone (gotta love the invite system!!) and so far it is unreal!! I subscribe to a heap of RSS feeds from various locations, and find it effective in terms of only notifying me of what I want!! I can’t wait to see what they do next (and I hear there is heaps more in the pipeline too)."

From SuperHelix

"If the Touchstone application is truly a “thinking” system with built-in AI and can create its own content filters based on observing keystrokes/site visits/tagging/email content/RSS feeds/preferences/etc., it addresses a legitimate need in the market to manage information overload. I could even see my folks getting excited about that, which = scalability"

Of course there were some questions about the viability of alerts for full-fledged RSS consumption etc but I think most people have understood the idea that Touchstone is a companion (not a replacement) to your feed reader and other full-screen applications. It's for those times that you're being productive - but you still want to stay informed.

Thanks to all those who have commented publicly and privately so far, and thanks to those who have signed up to our mailing list or registered as Adapter Developers (look forward to giving away that XBOX) - Will be interesting to see what comes next!

Round of funding for Touchstone Announced

As you may have seen on TechCrunch, we have announced that the Touchstone team has accepted a round of Angel funding from a local investor. I'd like to thank Marshall, Michael and Ouriel from TechCrunch for being so kind and generous with their time and giving us so much praise in the post!

We are very excited about the possibilities of Touchstone to help people filter their incoming information and stay informed while they work. By closing this round we will be able to accelerate our development and strengthen our position as the first client-side attention management platform.

Here's the official sounding press release for your reference.

FYI "Faraday Media" is the name of the newly formed parent company.

Faraday Media announce significant local funding for Touchstone development

Faraday Media today announce they have accepted significant funding from a local investor to accelerate development of Touchstone, the first Client-Side Alerting and Attention Management Engine.

Touchstone is designed to allow users to manage what information is important to them and how that information is displayed.

The recent trend towards web-based/social software and syndication via RSS and Atom has resulted in many users suffering from information overload. Touchstone helps to filter the noise. The application can model a user’s interests and then compare incoming information against their personal profile. In this way they are only interrupted by personally relevant information.

“Touchstone offers an opportunity for RSS to hit the mainstream by delivering information in a way that makes sense to the average user.” said co-founder of Faraday Media, Chris Saad.

The funding comes amid testing and collaboration by early adopters in a variety of industries including media, financial services, application development and attention management. The common thread is a desire to empower people to stay informed without getting overwhelmed or distracted.

“This is uncharted territory when you consider we are combining both alerting and attention management on the client-side.” says Ashley Angell co-founder of Faraday Media. “We are gratified that our efforts are being recognised by users globally and local investors alike.”

About the Company

Faraday Media Develops Touchstone – the first Client-Side Attention Management Engine. It is designed to simply and effectively cater to a diverse range of customers.

For Individuals Touchstone helps users tune out the noise so that they can focus on what matters while they work.

For Publishers and Application Developers Touchstone helps publishers and application developers reach their audience and users so that they can alert them to new information in real-time.

For the Enterprise Touchstone helps management to deliver messages to staff and customers in a way that bypasses the spam filled email inbox and allows staff to keep track of important industry information and competitor analysis.

Please contact me if you have any questions at chris@touchstonegadget.com

OPML is just a contents page

I was just talking to my good friend Marjolein on skype and we were talking about how people are focusing on OPML as a great way of describing someone's attention.

I was trying to explain our Personal Relevancy engine and how it's Attention Profile differed from straight OPML when out of nowhere a quick metaphor popped into my head. I thought I'd share.

OPML is like a contents page
Touchstone indexes the whole book

Win an XBOX 360 or one of four iPod Nanos

Today we are announcing a competition for developers who might be interested in writing an Adapter for Touchstone.

We are going to give away an XBOX 360 and 4 iPod Nanos to the most popular adapters developed over the next few months (as voted by the community).

Check out the competition page for more info.

Please spread the word to all your friends and colleagues and any forums/blogs you might have access to (without spamming of course) – it would really be appreciated!

Competition Page

Wallpaper fun

Some wallpaper fun for the peeps.

The Audience has left the Building

There is no more audience. There are no more users. There are only participants. Participants do not passively consume what an author, creator, director, developer, editor, critic or media outlet has to publish. They do not accept the authority. They do not sit silently ready to have their eyeballs converted into cash.

Participants participate. They create their own original information, entertainment and art. They remix their own version of mainstream pop culture - copyrighted or not. They post their thoughts, publish their fears and fact check every announcement. They share with their friends and discover the quirky and interesting making it an instant blockbuster – at least for 15 minutes.

Participants are no longer eyeballs to be converted. They are ideas to be declared. Individually they are a market of one. Collectively they are a trend, a publishing powerhouse and a voice to be heard. A voice that has something to say.

Anecdotally participants have changed the way media is published and interactions are monetized. But more broadly and importantly than that, they have changed the flow of global information from top down to bottom up. They are changing the tone and tempo of the conversation.

Elvis? Who is he? It's the audience who has left the building. All that's left are fellow participants. We are all authors, creators, directors, developers, editors, critics and media outlets. We are a million voices saying one thing - listen to me.

Are you paying attention?

Microsoft entering our market is great news... Bullsh#t!

I have heard a number of podcasts recently where feed reader vendors are asked the question "How do you feel about Microsoft including RSS support in IE7 and feed reading in Outlook.

And the answer is always "Oh we are very happy because this helps to bring feed reading to the mainstream and it will only help us grow the market together".

Sorry but this is crap.

I agree that a universal subscriptions store in IE7 is great for the entire RSS ecosystem on the client side, however integrating feed reading into Outlook 2007 is basically the death nail for 90% of use-case-scenarios for 90% of users in the 'reading feeds like email' space.

I think it spells the beginning of the end of the smaller vendors and the marginalization of the bigger players. Sure Outlook's feed reading features are no where near as good as Attensa or Feeddemon right now, but give it a little time.

Like with all of it's marketplace battles, Microsoft does not need to release the best product, only the most tightly integrated out-of-the-box 'good enough' solution.

The answer to the Microsoft question cannot be "Oh it's great, it grows the market". That's a lie. Because the question is not the size of the market, it's the size of the opportunity. And the increase in market size by Microsoft results in more Microsoft customers, not more opportunity.

We are working hard to release the first Beta and we will then be announcing features/extensions that will further differentiate Touchstone (The Attention Management Platform) from feed readers and gadgets/widgets (as if it needed more).

Now THAT'S customer service

Google sent a blogger a bottle of Aspirin because he had blogged that they were giving him a headache.

Classic.

Attention Context Zones

Mike Gotta has a great post about the need for various tools (including filters) that help users to get a better, content sensitive awareness of the information that matters to them. He calls it Thinking of Communication in Terms of Context Zones.

His diagram seems very similar to our diagram in terms of the message it's trying to convey.

I'd love to have people like Mike in our Advisory Group.

The challenges of entrepreneurship

I just listened to another great podcast by Cameron Reilly on The Podcast Network that really resonated with me. In the latest G'day world he talks about the challenges in finding good business and strategic partners, good people and even investors that follow through on their promises.

Most of his observations really resonated with me and I know that my own similar experiences have really stifled and frustrated me no end in my entrepreneurial activities.

So if any of you think you might be interested in listing to podcasts, or perhaps want to put your brand in front of a substantial audience - consider listening to or advertising on Cam's TPN!

In semi-related news... I've had the radio bug big time since doing my interview with Cameron - I need to record something.

What if the 'Rocketboom Incident' was a stunt

Wouldn't it be funny if the Rocketboom Incident was their equivalent of the purple cow.

Many credit them as the pioneers of Video Blogging but recently they had become just one of many video podcasts out there. This incident sure has helped them get back into the headlines and even on MSNBC etc... So maybe it was one big publicity stunt?

After all Amanda still owns 49%.

Hmm..

I'd like to take this opportunity to Tell my partner Ashley and all our fans out there that I quit Touchstone... *sits by the phone waiting for MSNBC to call*