The Me.Dium browser extension presents a visual depiction of what your "friends" are looking at online at that exact moment. What makes Me.Dium unique is that everything in Me.Dium is always presented in real time. If I give you permission, you could see what URL I'm looking at right this very moment.
Now, I know for many of you that sounds a bit scary. Many of you will have privacy concerns. I understand. I had to ask myself this question: Do I really want people knowing my every move online? Perhaps not, but I' like to consider the potential benefits of anything before simply writing it off. The only way I know to do that is to actually try it. :)
It should be noted that you can set yourself to "invisible" anytime you like. So, if you want to hide, you certainly can. I have been using Me.Dium for over a week now and have only invited and followed a very small number of people. The people I invited were folks who surf the web looking for solutions and ideas as a matter of course in their daily lives. They spend a good amount of their time in "exploration" mode and I knew that being able to see what they were looking at in real time might present some opportunities for discussion.
I recorded a short video of my first use of Me.Dium so you can see how it works.
Me.Dium was not built to be a business application, but I think it could have some strong business uses. You'll have your own ideas, but here are a few ideas that come to mind.
Learning From Trusted Sources: Friend and follow those whose opinions you respect. Join them as they are exploring a site you've not seen yet. Chat with them instantly about their thoughts.
Timely Local Conversations: Invite a few of your local real estate friends and use the sidebar. Alert each other to timely news in your local area. Chat in real time about the issue, event or finding.
Discuss New Listings: Friend other agents and brokers in your local area and use the tool to chat about new homes for sale or problems around specific listings.
Social Search: Looking for something and just can't seem to find it? Enlist your friends to help you search. We all search differently. So two heads (or 10) may be better than one.
My personal opinion is that Me.Dium is a tool that will be best utilized with a small number of people at a time. The visual window is not very large, so populating it with as many followers as I have on Twitter, for example, would make for a tangled mess of activity. It would simply be visually impossible to follow the movements.
I have a few suggestions. Since I am certain the folks responsible for making changes to Me.Dium will be reading this post, I have 2 simple suggesstions that would make this a more powerful exploration tool for business purposes.
Friend Groups: Allow me to organize friends into groups so I can follow a certain group at certain times. And allow people to be placed more than one group.
Selective Hiding: Allow me to hide myself from some people, but not others. There are times when I might like to use this for private exploration within a tighter circle of friends, or just my co-workers. Right now, I can only set myself to visible or invisible.
Me.Dium is one of those applications that you have to try for yourself. So, if you'd like to give it a test run, go install the browser plugin and find me. I'm respres on Me.Dium. I will have it running almost continuously.
It's neat, but I have to say...too many times technology hits a "glitch" and I would hate to have it "glitch" on me during something that shouldn't be seen or if others that you haven't invited get to see...
Ron... I completely understand your concern. For me, the benefits of being able to turn it on and off when I like give it some immediate value. I have several trusted sources who are in constant "learning" mode and having them online in real time would have some benefit to me.
Not every thing is for everyone! I present these ideas for consideration and exploration. Ultimately, the power of any tool lies in how you use it!
That sounds worse than the evil Google! But I've never liked any IM's anyway. I socially converse through You Tube, in the comment sections, when it's convenient for me. If I feel like doing any live chatting, I go over to Stickam because that's where my You Tube friends hand out =)
Maureen... Club Penguin for Adults. Love it. :) That's one of the niches I see it filling for me, so I'm hoping to speak with the Me.Dium folks about how to make this more useful from a business perspective next week.
Lisa... I'm a fan of Stickam, personally, though I don't share your disdain for chat. Sometimes it's the least intrusive form of real time interaction.
{SVW Hubba}...
Okay. So I am one of the ones who has some mixed feelings and safety concerns. But this time around I'm just gonna hang and see where it leads. I will refrain from writing an "Anit Me.Dium" post. Chewing on my Lovely foot ain't working for me :)
P.S. I do see the potential for someone as geeky as you :)
TLW...ROAR!
TLW [SVW]... that's why I throw these ideas out. My perspective is certainly not the only perspective. :) Services like this cause me to think about how the internet is used in ways I might not have otherwise. In this case, I plan on using it with a smaller group of people who I think can be available to discuss technology news.
Will this work for a realtor? For some, yes. For other, certainly not. I think it greatly depends on how and why you use the internet. I spend a great deal of my time in research and having instant access to a respected opinion is valuable to me. So, you may be very right about the geek factor. :)
I immediately thought of taking buyers (or sellers) on a surfing safari of applicable listings. I think it could also be great to do along with a conference call to create a seminar (like first time buyers for example) and lead them through sites that can help with the process.
Hey great video! Thanks for the write up! So glad that you are enjoying the map and sidebar! I'm part of the team here at Me.dium, so if you or any of your readers has any questions about Me.dium, I would be happy to help. Please feel free to add me as a friend, my username is "Jenniferlauren." We also always encourage user feedback, so if you've got any thoughts, etc, we would love to hear them. Thanks!
Jeff, Very cool! Just have to really think 1) if I want others to know what I'm doing 2) How applicable this is for me and my business. Thanks again for pointing this out, it is pretty cool!
Marc, thanks. But you and I both know, at the end of the day, cool doesn't mean a thing. I think Me.Dium needs to have some specific features before it can be used in a business setting. I plan on discussing those features with the Me.Dium team. They have invited me to do so. So, we'll see if it becomes more than just cool. :)
Hi Jeff, this reminds me of Jim Carrey on The Truman Show movie. I'm sure everyone would be so interested to see what I look at all day. It's not always my computer screen. Sometmes my dog, my creek and other boring stuff! lol
Jeff, I have absolutely nothing of substance to add but it does sound interesting and we all look to your for the latest and greatest....you never disappoint!
I understand how this would be beneficial for people who have great distances between them, but a part of me also wonders if technology is adversely limiting our live, in-person interactions. I call that 'digital imbalance'.
Hi Jeff - hmmm, I was thinking 'not for me' as I don't care to have others watching what I do. And then I saw Lane's comment, and that could have some potential for business use, and I'm sure as this is thought about more thoroughly, there will likely be even more uses for it that could enhance our businesses.
But, still....there are so many things out there, it does sort of feel like the whole world is watching everything at times.
I'll have to think about this one. They have a similar feature on You Tube that allows you to let others see what videos you've recently watched, and another feature that let's others see what ratings you given to recently watched videos. I keep these turned off. I like to hide ;)
I am a little bit social media network out at this point ;) There are just too many to keep track of.
but I think this is a great tool to keep tabs on your employees? :) I think me.dium may have troubles if there are not a lot of users on the interface to have enough fun while you are on it to share the experience. it can get boring if you just play by yourself in the sandbox. So they may have issues with that.
it looks really fun though, i like the little avatar that reminds me of old school nintendos. i think it's like what you said, it's great to finding new websites, and probably for webconferencing, and collabration.
Interesting, not sure how I would use it in business. Not sure I would want to know what my "friends" are looking at, but for technology guru's like you following other techy's I'm sure it would accomplish your purposes. I've bookmarked in the event I decide to move forward with this in the future.
Jeff, This is very interesting. You never know what someone is going to think of next. I could see where this might be a good application for some for small groups of business people, such as engineers. Thanks for sharing.
All... the social browsing space may heat up. Time will tell. But I did see this as well today - Weblin. Click on that link and go to click on the YouTube link to see how it functions. Not as personal or interactive as Me.Dium, in my opinion, but an interesting implementation of technology.
Jeff,
As long as there is a privacy button to make yourself invisible, I could see how this could be a very useful tool. Thanks for the heads up.
I could see agents using it in real time with their clients to view properties and such online. Or perhaps with a home stager or interior decorator. Ohhh, I like that last one:-)
For personal reasons, I could see using it with my mom to make it easier to communicate some things online. She's not inter-no-how, but she's not internet savvy either.
Helping real estate agents grow their relationships, their network and their businesses by effectively using evocative Internet-based services. I am the President and Founder of RealEstateShows.com.
;)
Links;)
Tags (Tag Cloud);)
Archives
Posted by 
Let me know your thoughts on this one.