Me.dium

I was invited to the closed beta for Me.dium, a social navigation plug-in for Firefox. I really am enjoying the app, and I think it represents an advance the web experience.

I believe that the buddylist is the center of the universe, and that I would like to stay aware af what my favorite people -- either close contacts or authorities I listen too -- are doing, reading, looking at. I really have been enjoying Twitter for that reason: people post their moods, location, activities, whatever, and I maintain a social awareness of those in my circles: equivalent in a way to what I would have if they were working in the same office as me.

Me.dium is a Firefox plugin that opens as a sidebar, like the built in History sidebar. It provides a buddylist of your me.dium contacts:

And that includes a more or less standard IM chat capability:

At the top, above the buddylist/chat area, Me.dium displays various users in a sort of radar screen. The pawn associated with each represents a user, and the orange pawn is you (or in this case, me). The name of the page that the user is browsing at that moment is displayed, along with the logo. If you click on one of the icons, you navigate to that page, joining a buddy perhaps, who might be, for example, reading a blog post. You and your buddy could then chat about the topic, while reading it "together".

This is very similar to the Eyebees concept that a client of mine was working on years ago, or other similar ideas, like lluna. However, the design of Me.dium -- embedding this navigator in the sidebar -- is truly great.

A few issues: I know that many will worry about privacy considerations. Me.dium allows you to shut off visibililty completely, to allow only your buddies to see what you are up to, or leaving your browsing totally open. I think a finer gradient of control -- like buddy groups -- is needed. I also worry that the display will become way too crowded as soon as I get six dozen or so buddies involved, so groups would agin be a good idea. It may also be a good idea to add a list of site that you are interested in (or not) so that people browsing there would come to your attention (or not).

At the moment, though, I am digging this tool, even if it is the fifth IM client I am running! Might be nice to integrate with other IM solutions, so I would get messages in iChat or Gtalk, if I didn't have Me.dium open... although, the way Me.dium has hooked me, I may never close it!

An afterthought: I haven't gone back to check, but this sort of social navigation reminds me of Matt Webb's Senses presentation at Reboot, where he hypothesized all sorts of new navigation solutions.

tags: me.dium, gtalk, ichat, matt+webb, social+navigation, /blip

Comments

[Chris Brogan...]

What's funny is, I find that most people, at least now in the closed beta, are all on sites I'm normally on (google, bloglines, upcoming, etc), so if part of me.dium is to discover NEW or INTERESTING things, I'm not finding it just yet. That said, it's a neat interface, and I like watching the little stick men roam back and forth doing their chores. It's like oldschool Warcraft, only instead of mining gold, they're getting their gmails.

Thanks for the invite.

[David Mandell]

Chris, good observation. And, just as any other closed beta, it's an issue of not enough people on the system yet. As more and more people add their activity, the unkown "gems" start to appear. In the interim, I would suggest looking at it as a new way to interact with your friends specifically online and watch as your friends' activity create new and interesting places to explore.

Stowe, thanks for the great write up!

[Econ201]

Can i get invite code of me.dium? Thank you!

econ201@gmail.com

[Christian Longe]

Can I get an invite code as well thanks

longe630@gmail.com