Monday, February 4, 2008

Here is the Plan...

I just happen to believe in the use of measured, managed, authenticated, off-line Internet forums or chat groups for a wide range of communication needs.

Measured, to facilitate setting of objectives and measuring progress toward those objectives, and to facilitate the measurement of group position on various issues.

Managed, because every group activity, blog or forum, is basically a group meeting that has always required management of varying degrees dependent upon the sophistication level of the participants.

Authenticated, to eliminate the Spam problem, means the use of exchanged passwords to allow communication only between users that have reached agreement.

Off-line, to emphasize that much of the activity in a forum can be conducted at one's convenience, in the solitude of one's computer room. To facilitate the participation of those that are limited to dial-up access, the procedure consists of connecting to the proper SMTP server, running the SandS Authenticated Read, SARead, to download the current batch of topics and then disconnecting -- this is very much like using RSS. The user then chooses a topic and performs a similar operation with the SandS Authenticated Chat, SAChat, to retrieve all message connected to a specific topic. If the user wishes to post a message, the SandS Authenticated Mail, SAMail, capability is used.

Of course, this means that everyone must use the same software, the alternative being some kind of lengthy process for negotiating the password specification -- and we all know what that means. Besides, the software is free and it has some other useful capabilities.

The biggest advantage of my plan is that we will have a built in mechanism for you, the user, to participate in the development of the software as well as any proceeds that might come from future sale of my software and/or company.