Problems With Presence

from the a-great-idea-that's-going-nowhere dept

People have been talking about the idea of “presence” for ages, but it’s never really moved very far beyond your instant messenger status – which many people don’t use. News.com is running a fairly in-depth look at the problems associated with presence – from the need to change user behavior to everyone using different standards to privacy concerns. All of these issues are going to remain stumbling blocks for quite some time – and it doesn’t help when those who know best, still insist for presence to work, users are going to have to adjust. That’s not how you get products adopted. Of course, the privacy issues are just as big – since I don’t want certain people to know that sort of information about me (nor do I want to know that information about others). Already, I’m noticing a problem with my IM clients. There are people on my “buddy list” who I barely know – and I’m wondering why they should be watching when I’m online and when I’m not.


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Comments on “Problems With Presence”

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3 Comments
Chris O'Donnell (user link) says:

No Subject Given

There are a few 13 year old girls that think they found Chris “the actor” O’Donnell’s IM address and have me on their buddy list. At first I thought just ignoring them would work, but I finally had to “chat” with them to convince them I wasn’t their dream boy.

I leave IM “on” all the time, and turn off the active / inactive notifier (this is in GAIM). Since it appears like I’m always online – nobody really knows what my status is.

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