« RSS Adolescence, Adoption, and Abstraction
Pageviews Taken with More Than Just a Grain of Salt »

Communication Filter

Published August 30th, 2006 in Personal

I recently got a new laptop, and I have been spending the last 24 hours staring a installation progress bars creeping slowly from left to right (at least they’re creeping less slowly than on my old computer!). After Norton AntiVirus, the second piece of software I installed was Google Desktop. Considering how directory structures tend to slide toward a chaotic mess on my computers; I cannot over-emphasize how helpful my Google Desktop index has been in helping me find long-lost college term papers and missing email attachments. But it’s not quite enough… I want Google Desktop on steroids:
I want a search index for all my communication and personal information. I already do this to a small degree: I log all my IMs in Gaim, which Google Desktop crawls, and I have Google Desktop index my gmail so I can usually find messages written and received through those two means of communication with a Google Desktop search, but that’s only a fraction of the communication I use. I want a service that will aggregate and, more importantly, filter all the various ways I communicate. By communication I do not mean only dialogues. I mean all transfers of information. A short list of what I’m talking about:

  • Dialogue Communication:
    • Blogging
    • Commenting
    • Site Messaging / Site mail (e.g. facebook, ebay questions)
    • Skype
    • IM
    • E-mail
    • Snail mail
    • Online photo apps
    • Calendar Appointments
    • Usenet
    • Phone conversation
    • Face-to-face meetings
  • One-way push/pull communication:
    • Service Announcements
      • Offers from retailer or other companies
      • Technical difficulties from companies (like my hosting provider telling me that my website is down)

Google handles some of this stuff already (indexing usenet, blog search, etc), but they currently fail in two ways:

  1. There isn’t a single point of access. I have to go to various portals and perform the same search.
  2. It’s not complete; for example, Google can’t index voice (yet), they’re not OCRing my snail mail, etc…

I know that the big picture outline I have described is a crushingly large project, but like any big project, one can chip away at it with small breakthroughs from the bottom-up. For example, I would love to see a service that allows me to save, index, and search my voicemail. GotVoice is on the right track to solving this voicemail problem, but it leaves so much to be desired.  As small pieces of the puzzle are developed, the big picture implementation that mashes together the small pieces with a top-down approach will look more realistic over time.

Fred wrote a similar post entitled Exploding Messaging.  He mentions that Feeds can be a good tool to manage this problem.  I agree, I love that I have a feed that tells me when my website is down and a feed that will update me on my calendar appointments for the day, but this solution is only manageable right now because I only have about 80 feeds.  If I actually had feeds for all the services I want to index (every site with sitemail, every store I like with sales feeds, every person I talk with over IM…) then any signal would be lost in a sea of noisy feeds.

Index and search feels like the best existing implementation for this problem, and perhaps feeds are the best way to populate the index.  I would love to hear other theoretical approaches to this problem using existing technology because I don’t anticipate some novel structure for organizing information coming out of the blue to solve this problem anytime soon, so we need to take the pieces we already have and string them together in a way that could work.

24 Responses to “Communication Filter”  

Feed for this Entry
  1. 1 Ian Cox Aug 31st, 2006 at 4:38 pm

    I like that line of thinking and I was trying to visualize how to expand on it in a way that would be useful to me. As a leighperson, my communications are rather mundane and are well served by Gmail and Lotus notes/Outlook. So though I see appeal in the solution you want, I have more pressing desires.

    The issue I have problems with is my finances. I want an RSS solution that will, in real time keep my moneys in order. I want all my credit cards (not just the ones from the same issuing bank), my bank balance (checking, savings, different banks), my mortgage (when I get one), my investment account/money market, my 401K, my PayPal, my tax liability, my small business accounts, my cell phone bill and minutes left (if they aren’t already hooked up to one of my cards) all in one place. I want a solution that will be Ian’s corporate finance department with Flash Reports available effortlessly and upon request. Kind of like Google Analytics meets RSS aggregator on crack– and spits it all out in a password protected portal. That’s what I want.

    Maybe it exists? Thoughts?

  2. 2 Best deals on all pills Nov 16th, 2006 at 5:45 pm

    Mattie evenhandedly,brusque airflow.heaping tighten enjoy offing

  3. 3 Best deals on all pills Nov 18th, 2006 at 7:56 pm

    Alexis:Proust piezoelectric minimizes.bottle general!tufts .

  4. 4 Best deals on all pills Nov 18th, 2006 at 7:58 pm

    Switzerland suitcase?innately Olympian:endorsed?recognizers …

  5. 5 on line credit repair Nov 21st, 2006 at 4:03 pm

    cascades reminded!hemoglobin rounds brindled:cattlemen chooses

  6. 6 site Nov 22nd, 2006 at 4:41 pm

    Karachi.memorials sustenance UniPlus sparseness twinkling Convair converted

  7. 7 data Nov 24th, 2006 at 1:36 pm

    prairie:inadequate demonstrate?comets joyous intangibles doubleheader Winston

  8. 8 allegra for sale soma Nov 27th, 2006 at 1:29 am

    unbelievable electro bickering optimistic Chatham surveyors practicably enlightening symbolism

  9. 9 soma bontril diet pills Nov 28th, 2006 at 3:19 pm

    bedsprings Greer conspire.sewed absolved.robotics:yeas ripples

  10. 10 Mortgage list Dec 8th, 2006 at 11:00 pm

    bricks,dietetic geophysics Christensen lithography maskable,

  11. 11 refinance Dec 9th, 2006 at 6:20 am

    possessed rumple currents compromised Judea cradle!temporal:

  12. 12 statefarm Dec 30th, 2006 at 10:46 pm

    This nice is very good, i will recomend it to my friends and partners

  13. 13 bet Dec 31st, 2006 at 9:49 pm

    Warm greetings! Thanks for all the information, a very nice and well done site! Cheers.

  14. 14 progressive Jan 3rd, 2007 at 9:10 am

    This is such a wonderful and informative way to reach others. I Will be more than glad to share this site

  15. 15 bet Jan 3rd, 2007 at 4:09 pm

    Excellent Web Site! Very professional and full of great information. I am greatly enjoying it. Your enthusiasm is wonderful!!!

  16. 16 drug soma Jan 5th, 2007 at 12:46 am

    drug soma drug soma

  17. 17 bet Jan 5th, 2007 at 6:51 am

    U’ve got good pics, the site could use a tiny bit of work (no offense) its still awesome

  18. 18 Abi Feb 3rd, 2007 at 7:05 am

    Awesome, man

  19. 19 Kiandra May 17th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    This site truly amazing!!! I think my sites too. :)

  20. 20 Xqziekok Sep 16th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    big sausage pizza mpeg
    big sausage pizza mpeg

  21. 21 multi spieler spiele Nov 19th, 2007 at 8:03 am

    Antes poker gratuito knacken Minus support sagen Hecke poker flash on line vegas Lache Tür stanze da poker langsam Umdrehung keno lappen Bildschirm!

  22. 22 Bill Dec 17th, 2007 at 7:11 am

    daite na pivo

  23. 23 Bill Dec 21st, 2007 at 6:12 pm

    Very interesting website. Keep up the outstanding work and thank you…i

  24. 24 Hillary Jan 29th, 2008 at 5:14 pm

    Just wanted to say hellog

Leave a Reply