Martin Geddes on Directories

Martin has been blue-skying about directories.  He’d like to see:

  • Opt-in, and editable.  Got a new photo, updated address information, or a new phone number? Just go edit it.
  • Opaque telephony. Anonymous out-bound calls, if that’s what you want, on-demand. Isn’t this otherwise known as caller-id block?
  • A telemarketer line.  Want to call me?  It will cost you £2.00 / minute.  Make sure what you’re offering is of interest.

To which I would add:

  • Hide and seek.  Make sure the call reaching me is actually relevant to what I am doing. Find me if it is.
  • Presence.  The directory server should also be a presence server.
  • All the usual stuff about interests, roles, blogs etc that you find in modern IM profiles. 

And all of the above should be applicable to any form of real time communications.  Telemarketers don’t reach me on IM, yet, but there are plenty of occasions when I want finer grained control over presence than is currently offered.

The communications world is evolving from a network-centric world to a me-centric world. In the me-centric world:

  • You reach me, not my device(s).  Phone numbers (10 digit network addresses) are an anachronism.  Just as you wouldn’t try to reach this blog by typing in its IP address, no longer will you try to reach me by knowing which of the E-164 addresses I can be found at.  The network will know.
  • I am in control.  Sophisticated tools well beyond what is envisioned by today’s primitive presence technologies enable me to project whatever persona I wish to whomever is trying to reach me.  Software bots help me filter, rank, and prioritize communications.  Nuisance callers are a thing of the past.

It’s not so far fetched as it seems.  We’re nearly there today, and within five years this technology will be mainstream.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2005 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Tech and Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Martin Geddes on Directories”

  1. Callers Bear Some of Responsibility Too! -- Alec Saunders .LOG Says:
    September 6th, 2005 at 5:57 pm

    [...] Of course, this cries out for a me-centric technology solution.  Phones should know who the important callers are, and help you manage the others.  [...]

  2. Interruptions cost $588B -- Alec Saunders .LOG Says:
    September 9th, 2005 at 7:18 am

    [...]   “The answer is not to shut them off,” he added. “It’s training people in how to use them, and making knowledge workers and managers aware of the cost. It’s as incumbent on the individual knowledge worker as it is on a manager to manage attention to do the work.” Awareness by itself is not the answer.  What’s needed is a method to rank, filter, and prioritize those interruptions — a me-centric communications model that puts control of communications back in the users hands. [...]

  3. The Skype Webcast -- Alec Saunders .LOG Says:
    September 12th, 2005 at 12:40 pm

    [...] Presence and availability, coupled with privacy, are one of the key drivers.  This ties back to my vision of me-centric communications.  The vision is to accelerate commerce, while addressing privacy issues, by including voice. [...]

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