Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

IM: Location, Location, Location

Author:Phil Wolff
Posted:8/1/1999; 10:54:32 AM
Topic:IM: Location, Location, Location
Msg #:8974
Prev/Next:8972 / 8975

Attention/Screen Constraints are the Driving Force in Instant Messaging and Related Tools

In the last 9 months a new battle for screen real estate opened up. This is like:

There is a new platform in town and it is the browsing companion. It comes in a spectrum of flavors. Some, coming from the IRC chat legacy, include

But there are more.

Both groups are engaging in a competition for visible/clickable space on your monitor. The first group is doing this as a stand alone service. They are after several things:

The second group works as a companion to your browsing activities. They use information in your browser to understand exactly what you're looking at and to add value to your surfing experience. Some, like Zadu, Third Voice, Tribal Voice, Odigo, and uTok, are taking a community, chatting, communications approach. We'll probably see these features converge through competition.

The communication oriented services want to evolve into the net's new carriers. I suspect that those not owned by portals or telcos will be, within 18 months. (Prediction! check back.)

How Valuable is Your History File?

We've all seen Alexa's "What's Related?" toolbar button. What happens, now that they're an Amazon company?

If I'm surfing the San Francisco YMCA site they may not only tell me about the national Y site, a Y history site and the YMHA, they may also show me books on the history of the Y, the Tampa YMCA Hip Hop House Party video, and CDs by the Village People.

Do they cache my surfing history? If so, Alexa may better understand a momentarily focused interest or my directed search. Based on the last 30 pages I viewed, maybe they can tell I have lower back pain and they refer me to the Analgesics section of Drugstore.com and suggest the "YMCA Healthy Back Book."

Real Estate Value Comes from Quality and Scarcity and Control

In practice, I can only have so many open windows, toolbars, explorer panels/frames, and Explorer Bar buttons. So this is a race for who can persuade or coerce users into choosing their solution at the expense of the rest. Metcalfe's law and gorilla marketing at work.

Who owns the screen real estate now? We could look at the various folks who occupy your computer. Let me suggest, however, that the user is the rightful owner and the rest merely tenants. Like mall owners, we will assert our right to a productive return on our capacity. Let's see whether any of these players become anchor tenants, like Win95 and MS Office, big national chains, deparments in a bigger tenant, or small boutiques. It makes me glad to shop!

I can't wait to see the competition come to that little strip mall called the PalmPilot.

Let's chat about it sometime. philwolff at MSN Messenger, evanwolff on AIM, evanwolf at WebEX, pager at http://www.slip.net/~pwolff, office 650 610 1211, efax 603 250 6572, mail at work Philip.Wolff@Adecco.com, email at home pwolff@bigfoot.com, and many more vectors to come. Or here at http://discuss.userland.com/.

Phil Wolff

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