Comments on: Realtime & the off switch

By: stephenrossscott

stephenrossscott — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:24:29 +0000

Region blocked video. FFS kick these region blockers off the bloody web.

By: Yusuf

Yusuf — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:10:29 +0000

In “Now” world, we want stay current on Super Relevant content, offers, .. but we end up consuming a lot of irrelevant SPAM and wasting time. The Apps need to connected to Super Relevancy Engine that understands user intent, behavior, context, … That is the OFF switch.
Yusuf Ansari
Founder, Intuition Intelligence, Inc.

By: Ivo Spigel

Ivo Spigel — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 08:20:46 +0000

Re: taking it easy & coffee, check out this wonderful piece by a US expat in Croatia http://zablogreb.blogspot.com/2013/01/having-coffee-in-croatia-or-idemo-na.html
You’re welcome to join us, Om :-)

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:15:13 +0000

Steve

Thanks for that thoughtful comment. I totally agree with what you said and I am waiting for apps to implement the off-switch. Twitter and Facebook should take the lead :-)

By: scrandall

scrandall — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:09:35 +0000

When I first joined Bell Labs in the early 80s, my laboratory instituted 4 hour periods for focus and concentration … you would pick one in the morning or the afternoon and you had control of who would access you. The local pbx had been set up to allow up to 3 phone numbers of your picking to come through – everyone else could leave a voice mail. Computer network access went dark (admittedly it was primitive at the time).

About five years ago I helped a fantastically creative company try something similar, but addressing newer technology. Emergency calls can get through – everything else goes black except for certain types of net communications within the company. They believe it has made a significant change in their creativity and productivity.

Increasingly real sign of those with power is the ability to own one’s own time and that means a big “Off” switch.

By: Raf

Raf — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:43:15 +0000

very good piece, thanks OM! all the article references are a must read

By: Clinton Wu

Clinton Wu — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:38:26 +0000

This is interesting. Would you proactively turn Twitter off whenever your mind gives your finger the urge to tap the app icon or would you schedule Twitter to be turned off in advance of a dinner with friends? It’s a small nuance but it’s important as to whether the off switch acts as a diversion or a barrier.

Also, I think what you describe goes beyond just real-time apps. While they may be the worst offenders, some people probably feel the same urge to check GigaOM rather than Twitter. You may argue social network is different than news but regardless, there’s something here in terms of rerouting the spectrum of information updates (from ephemeral to permanent) into short bursts that can be consumed and then be done away with. This is what I’m thinking about at Skim.Me too.

By: Scott Nelson

Scott Nelson — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:18:04 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. However, what do you do when people start to get offended that you didn’t respond to their e-mail until 12 hours later? Or you didn’t message them back immediately? It’s a cultural shift that requires combating

By: Kamal

Kamal — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:24:44 +0000

Individual switches in apps wont have much use. Either you need a data connection in your mobile or you don’t need it.

By: ronald

ronald — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:55:30 +0000

The problem is the organization paradigm, MVC.
MVC in the 21th century:
M Model as self organizing data
V View or other appropriate out like TTS adjusted to context/ mobile/ big screen/
C Collaboration between machine[s] and user[s]

In other words the OS should provide the collaboration controls to autonomously filter on different level depending on what’s going on. You should not be forced to do it by app.