Presence Is My New Shiny Object

We talk a lot about shiny object syndrome these days (image: Nokia N97 Next to iPhone by Robert Scoble). It’s important to avoid falling in love with the tools and focus on the objectives. Yet, at the same time one should not follow this advice in the absolute sense, and keep innovating with the constant onslaught of new media tools.  This is particularly important for those communicators like me who want to stay on the edge.

Well,  from a bleeding edge standpoint it’s time to get beyond the current conversational media.  In a conversation with Jen McClure last month, she made a joke about social media being dead.  In some ways this is more true than one knows.  Consider this year’s red hot media form is Twitter, a rebuilt three-year old social network.

For me, what’s really starting to fascinate me is the booming trend towards mobile and tactile input. The reality is that the computer industry is close to achieving a ubiquitous movement towards  presence media, one which relies on motion for input (wii, Kindle, many types of phones, eye motion), and can access the Internet in just about any environment.

I know what you’re thinking:

Isn’t that just virtual reality?

Yes, I guess it is. Though I see us migrating towards virtual worlds with levels of presence emersion rather than a full-on “jack into the Matrix” experience. Technology and media never seems evolve in huge leaps, rather gradual steps (1.0 to 2.0).  In that sense, while a temporary success, Second Life represents a great early example of presence media could (or shouldn’t) be.

So yeah, my shiny object is the next generation of media sites and applications catering to these new technologies. We are actively playing with a Mini 9 in the office right now, as well as other tools.  Our over-arching question: How will presence media change the way we communicate? And when it does, we intend to be there.