Tuesday 5 July 2011

The Social Noise

The social noise
The term “Social noise” is relatively new, searching the meaning of social noise landed to Urban dictionary link saying - “the general background noise found at concerts, nightclubs, restaurants and other events where groups of people gather.”

Lets say we dig in a little more into this social noise in a restaurant. Lets bring in few things of interest at the table. I pull in you and couple of friends, a nicely roasted chicken specially ordered with choice of spices on table and few mugs of beer. Fine so appetizer for discussion is ready. We start talking about various things ranging from family to national politics, to sports and the pretty girl sitting on next table. We have a nice conversation. But during the course of conversation we have a incessant buzz of conversation from all the tables around, even from the table served for the pretty girl.

Interesting setup, all the tables are having a useful conversation some about a movie, some about work, some about medical conditions, recession, sports etc. etc. Let me throw a problem to you, can you try to join a table discussing specific thing of interest say “sports” in that social noise of restaurant. Its pretty difficult! huh?. If we translate this real world social noise into the much celebrated internet we see its very much analogous.

Internet in current state has several modes of communication which lets us address individual(s) or group(s) or announce it globally. We subscribe to them and use our creativity to express ourselves, so far so good but we do not get to organize our information. Coming back to the restaurant where our dinner may get colder, what if I put a big banner “Tennis” on the table which has 4 guys discussing about Novak Djokovic defeating Rafael Nadal in Wimbledon finals. Lets hang around with them or may be call them over to my table.
Well we would say this is nothing new you can well achieve this to some extents from the existing social networks, true to some degree but they run out of steam before really giving great value. None of the existing social networks finely organize and serve back the contribution of a user on internet.
How important is this organization of information to me ?

Well it is invaluable. Lets just drop the idea of finding a table which is discussing sports. Lets say you are avid internet user and you tell a lot about your self over the internet. On a Monday morning you said your espresso was refreshing, on Tuesday you said your dinner date at the near by Mexican was adorable, Wednesday you said you are backpacking to the Himalayas in summers, Thursday you said this year belongs to Rafael Nadal and Sunday you are here on dinner. What all you said on internet is invaluable, you spent a precious time of yours. So you must have had a choice to put your Himalayan plan to your travelling thoughts while Nadal into your sports opinions and Mexican restaurant and the date into food and people acquaintances.

Such an organization does a lot to put you into shape as an avid internet user. Your Himalayan backpacking can be put with your last months trip to Rio and your Mexican food interest can be lined up with your roasted chicken you are having now. So the outcome can be a beauty of channelized data. On one hand showing the most relevant aspect of you at a time. When I am interested to see about your food habits I get to dig into your thoughts for food. This goes long way, as when collaboratively all of us start organizing our data over the internet, what we start extracting is a music from the cacophony of existing social noise. We get to showcase our interests, activities, places, thoughts and get associated with the specifics of individuals and groups. Like the table talking about the sports.

So we had food for thought and a thought for food… -ActWitty

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