Social Signaling

Problem:

In the world, on any given day you walk by 1000s of people focused on EXACTLY the same stuff you’re focused on – and you don’t even know it – that’s broad – I’ll give you an example:

There are employers who want to hire you – and you want a job

Your research group embarks on a research project – and the research has already been done but you don’t know about it

You’re looking for a house and you walk past someone with a house to rent

You are looking to buy a motorcycle – you walk past people who have motorcycles to sell all the time

These are signaling problems – and they should be solvable. Imagine a world in which these problems were solved – companies would approach you when you ran into problems rather than constantly assulting you the way they do now. Job hunters and employeers would find one another. People within research groups would “hear” when other scientists with similar interests began talking about their topic and they could share their ideas and information. The barter economy would thrive – imagine an iphone app where you could say, “I want a motorcycle” and then as you walk to work, your phone “hooks you up” with someone who’s dying to get rid of his motorcycle.

Many of these problems already have web sites which are trying to “solve” the signaling problem. I think that they’re missing something critical though – these signals need to be mapped to space and time – otherwise how can you act when the opportunity presents itself.

So some practical ideas:

Job Push – jobs come to you – employers come to you when they’re seeking workers and you’re looking for work

Web Push – information comes to you – only fresh information – this way you can contact the person who’s talking about what you’re interested in WHILE THEY’RE STILL FOCUSING ON IT

Marketing Push – A sliver of web push – marketers can track “noise” on the web – IMPORTANTLY this lets them contact the noise maker to initiate a conversation – Much easier to get your PR don’t you think?

On mac they have Grizzly – A notification system which pops up notifications on a users’ desktop – Imagine creating systems which used grizzly to publish the signals I’m talking about here – better yet imagine something like that on the iPhone. It would be great don’t you think!?