Welcome to my old blog, which I no longer maintain.

For details of my current professional services and activities see www.martingeddes.com.

October 28, 2003

Can I be your buddy?

Appeal to readership: help needed. What are the solutions to the following two problems, and how can a money-making opportunity be made out of solving them?

Instant messaging seems to be hitting a social barrier in the the affordances of the system. You're either my buddy, or you're not. I'm either chatting with you or I'm not. There's no middle ground.

It just often seems impossible to satisfactorily end a conversation with someone who hasn't left their keyboard. And I've got people on my buddy list who can still track my comings and goings, but I don't chat with them any more because our relationship was associated with circumstances that have passed (e.g. a work project last year). Yet, I don't want to drop them off the list for fear of causing offence and poisoning potential future interactions.

Where's the equvalent of edging away from the party bore in IM?

Posted by Martin Geddes at 3:58 PM
Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/33

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Can I be your buddy?:

» How to get rid of your buddies from Stuart Mudie Dot Net
Over at Telepocalypse (which is a great name for a very interesting blog on the theme of "Telecom strategy in the age of end-to-end networks), Martin asks for recommendations for a socially acceptable way to end instant messaging conversations, and... [Read more]

Tracked on October 30, 2003 10:02 AM

» How to get rid of your buddies from Stuart Mudie Dot Net
Are there really people with so many buddies that they have hundreds of chat windows popping up whenever they log on? Just because someone is on your buddy list, that doesn't necessarily imply that they want to chat with you all the time. [Read more]

Tracked on October 30, 2003 10:05 AM

» How to get rid of your buddies from Blethers.com
Are there really people with so many buddies that they have hundreds of chat windows popping up whenever they log on? Just because someone is on your buddy list, that doesn't necessarily imply that they want to chat with you all the time. [Read more]

Tracked on March 29, 2004 2:06 PM