Ambient communication

You’re in a crowded pub after work, and your mate has gone to the toilet. Sipping your beer, you start tuning in on the conversations around you. The people to your right are going on about the Michael Jackson death thing; behind you is some footballer mouthing off to his fans; to your left, some people are talking about Masterchef, and they’ve forgotten the name of the restaurant reviewer.  This is something you know, and because you’ve had a bit of social lubricant, you turn to them and say “Excuse me, I think it’s Matt Preston”. 

Congratulations, you now understand Twitter.  But that’s not what this piece is about, per se. The “pub conversation” style of communication is emblematic of the notion of ambient communication: communication that happens around you, that you may or may not be paying complete attention to. This is communication as “background noise”. You can tune in and out of it at will. The communication won’t really miss you when you’re not participating, but it’s there, waiting for you to take interest, notice a keyword, or simply get bored.

Likewise, you can contribute to the ambient conversation by saying something, apropos of nothing. It’s like walking into a bar and asking if anyone has any jumper cables, because your car battery is flat. Some people will hear you, some people won’t; some people will have jumper cables; some people won’t. You’re hoping that at least one person who has jumper cables will hear you and offer to help.   has been around since the very beginning of the Internet. Back then, it was called IRC and (to a certain extent) mailing lists. These days, it’s called Twitter and Facebook. It’s the same concept, just made a bit sexier with rounded corners and gradated fills.