Clearer Vision

...here's what's needed now in the "fabric of the social media platform." (Hark! Consultant speak afoot.)

We need control over the portion that we see. It's like we need focal controls on our vision into spaces like Twitter and Facebook. We need the ability to "grow" a filter that brings our attention to the things that belong in our attention.

One thing from Facebook now that makes this more possible is the ability to filter out specific applications. Most of us see FB through the newsfeed and up until recently, the only choice you had with a high noise-maker was to filter the person's output so that you wouldn't see any of it. You couldn't filter out the "Peeps" and the "Easter Eggs" and the "smurf of the day" application.

If the person was introducing them into the stream, you had to tolerate it or they had to go. In the responsible age of application interface to the newsfeed, it's totally possible that we could dampen out the sound from a friend who's playing a game without eliminating that friend from our attention.

In Facebook I want to be able to say, "no quiz results" and "no smurf-wars" without having to say "no Freida" or "no Bob." If Frieda and Bob (both mythical) contribute to the newsfeed only with quiz results and their "smurf wars" high score, then they will be silenced anyway.

With this ability emerging on FB, it will be easier to hone in on just the material you really want to see.

---v