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August 27, 2007
How Asynchronous Communications became the new Synchronous:
twitter and Facebook status messages are generally considered "asynchronous communication", except by those people who happen to be online the moment they are sent and for them, these messages can appear as another form of synchronous communications.
But generally speaking, unlike being on a phone call or participating in an online chat room, someone’s message from twitter can be received at any later point in time. And yet, because of the "always on" experience of twitter and Facebook, I find that others (and I, myself) am using these tools as if the communication is synchronous. I often have had a similar experience with email where I find myself “chatting” using a synchronous platform but engaging in what feels like slightly-delayed, real-time communications.
These days “a good day” is day when I’m online with a working broadband connection. These are the days I feel most connected and most caught up with most things on mind. And a “bad day is…” just about any day I am offline for a long stretch of time as I suffer from what I can best describe as “Internet Anxiety.”
(Jeffrey Sass posted a parody video on Facebook which provides a fun perspective of how social media effects some of our daily routines.)
Over time this experience will only get better as the current high “signal to noise ratio” problems that many of us experience get solved with the advent of widely available social media filtering tools which will be able to be applied against the people/topics that matter the most to us.
While I still rely on telephones and email to stay connected with some people, the summer of 2007 has taught me other ways to create a parallel communication experience.
As real-time social media continues to evolve, I will know where my friends are, what they're facing, if and when they need help, when they have discovered something interesting and many other things they care to share at any moment. The people in my social media communications circle represent a group of people I feel much closer to than some other people whom I’ve known for a long time but never really have gotten to know. Sort of the difference between a well developed character in a novel as compared to someone whose character never gets really developed. And for me, this is one of the defining moments for Jeff Pulver on the Internet during the summer of 2007, as compared to any of my other summers on the Net since I became active in the early 90s.
Overall, I believe what is in front of us is a very valuable communications tool with some incredibly useful modes. Modes which will become more evident over time. And modes which will eventually be commercialized by many people.
Turns out, what appears to be “fun and frivol” to some people, can be the next big thing for someone else. It all depends upon your Peripheral Vision. :-)
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Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.
Tags: twitter, Facebook, Social Media, Jeffrey Sass, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on August 27, 2007 10:20 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
The blurring line between synchronous and asynchronous manifests itself everywhere. It happens all the time in email, especially at my company--people expect email to be a near-synchronous experience. Hello! It was modeled after the postal service, a 200-year-old system which may be efficient (arguable given profitability), but certainly isn't instantaneous.
I think Ed Roberts' way of slicing it is much more impactful: it's not about the medium--that's pretty much (but not entirely) irrelevant given modern technolology--it's about the mode.
Okay, I see a blog post coming on this...
Posted by: Todd Van Hoosear at August 27, 2007 04:13 PM
Social media is starting to suffer from the same problems that people had when they started to have multiple email addresses, aggregation and synchronization. I would like a tool ( for windows, I already know about moonblast for the Macgnoscenti ) that allows me to update my social media status once via web/mobile and have it propagated to twitter/facebook/etc... To paraphrase my Dad talking about cell phones, you need to manage social media, not have it manage you. Otherwise, it just becomes useless.
Posted by: Craig Plunkett at August 27, 2007 02:37 PM
A Great post Jeff, I think what we have yet to grasp and utilise is how Twitter and facebook and plaxo and linkedIn are providing a inverse Addressbook.
The social community is maintaining their own contact records so syncing them between my twitter list, facebook and plaxo means im not managing to maintain 1 address book across a number of machines.
Plaxo and Twitter and Facebook and the rest are letting me know what each of my Contacts and Friends and associates is upto, conversely I am doing the same.
Now when I think about doing photography I know Scotthephoto is around. For PR I speak to SuzyMiller. For Editorial content and geek trivia Sizemore, Danacea and Rosevibe are all excellent contacts and I know where they are up to and what they are involved in.
When Chris Brogan ponders Game theory or Jeff Pulver considers social media networks I know about it and as a Salesman and Marketing maverick I can steer my clients towards conversations that benefit them.
Of course this idea of open "Hot Buttons" and direction less ( its not it just looks that way on the outside ) marketing is so Entirely Alien that explaining it and gaining value from it is still in the "Wheres the metrics" stage.
Three things are improving. Speed, Storage and Signal It only those with the motivation to move and the capacity to include and the desire to communicate that will benefit as Early Adopters in this market. . . hmm im writting a blog here . sorry .
Thats all for now, cheers for the post it got me off another Rant.
Nik ( Loudmouthman ) Butler
Posted by: Nicholas Butler at August 27, 2007 12:40 PM
hmmm - well 2007 hasn't been the summer of love but since it is still summer maybe it has been the summer of Asynchronous (a-sin-chronous) synchronous self-love - even though i have been on twitter shortly after jeff i never indulged for fear that i would be swamped with my own and others non-sense but on facebook i can't escape the twitter like status-updates so i decided to challenge myself and the status-quo and see if i can get people to be more inspired in their status-updates by trying to be more inspired myself and to some degree by chasing jeff and my shadow around the room so to speak and well maybe its the summer of a-sin-chronous love :-) - geo (at) DiarRHETORICS.COM
Posted by: geo geller at August 27, 2007 12:24 PM
You summarise your experince well.
I enjoyed the read, particularly how you consider a good day and a bad day, and I'm totally with you on that!
And indeed "fun and frivol" environments can often be where the goodness is created or initiated, something which many people in business, it seems, are really struggling to get their heads around, that of social media and the paradox of blending work and play, if indeed it need be a paradox at all.
Posted by: Chris Hambly at August 27, 2007 12:13 PM
Great post Jeff. I really see new media in three forms. No, I'm not thinking audio, video, text.
1. Real-time (or near real-time) such as Twitter, chat rooms, IM, etc.
2. Time-delayed asyncronous such as podcasts, blog entries. Even Twitter can be thought of this way with people looking back on links or subscribing to a person's Twitter feed. The delayed conversation also is valuable in picking up those that may have missed communication from level 1.
3. Responses to the conversation. I separate this out because it goes both synchronous and asynchronous. Both are extremely valuable.
When we can excel in engaging the conversation at all these levels, new media truly thrives.
Posted by: Ed Roberts at August 27, 2007 12:03 PM