Instant Syndicating Standards

ISS (Instant Syndicating Standards) associates each individual with their own broadcasting channels (represented in form of tag clouds) and connects these channels through a trusted network of people (represented in form of tag links).

Much like Instant Messaging, users manage their contacts list by adding people they trust and with whom they share a common interest. However, instead of just displaying the contact’s name and avatar, ISS displays a tag cloud of channels for each contact as well. This promotes the awareness of news and information being created and broadcasted within the social network. If a user becomes interested in a particular channel, he or she may subscribe to this channel and add it to his/her own personalized channel.

Creating news and information is as easy as writing an instant message and in a way it resembles blogging very much. However, instead of sending this information to someone in particular or to no one at all, the information is broadcasted to a particular channel. Everyone within the personal social network that is subscribed to this channel receives this information. The advantage of this approach is that it’s non-obtrusive and yet a target public still exists. The information travels within the social network as long as it remains relevant. Who decides the relevance of the information are the people themselves.

ISS connects people with news and information that matters to them the most by letting people themselves express what matters to them at an individual level. This challenges the top-down model of information sharing and gives place to a bottom-up model, where each person has a unique voice and equal opportunity to contribute and benefit. In this way, ISS hopes to bring people closer together to discuss common interests and share information in a more open and democratic manner.