Flow based tools like twitter, identi.ca and Workstreamer are great examples of how applications and desktops will evolve to help end-users manage and analyze how their attention is being allocated to the various information streams they believe are contextually important and relevant to their work and personal lives.
Along this line of thought, Nova Spivack of Twine offers his vision for the future of the desktop and the role that flow-based, attention analytics will play.
"The focus shifts from information to attention
As our digital lives shift from being focused on the old fashioned desktop (space-based metaphor) to the Web environment we will see a shift from organizing information spatially (directories, folders, desktops, etc.) to organizing information temporally (river of news, feeds, blogs, lifestreaming, microblogging).
Instead of being a big directory, the desktop of the future is going to be more like a Feed reader or social news site. The focus will be on keep up with all the stuff flowing through and what the trends are, rather than on all the stuff that is stored there already.
The focus will be on helping the user to manage their attention rather than just their information.
This is a leap to the meta-level. A second-order desktop. Instead of just being about the information (the first-order), it is going to be about what is happening with the information (the second-order)."
Comments