Smess
Smess is/was an idea for a chat app inspired by conversations to discussideas. These conversations often occur deliberately, so someone could -in principle - open some Smess chat for discussion of idea(s), nodifferent from setting up a meeting, and record a multimediaconversation between two people over some discrete length of time. Thiscould be hacked together with systems like Matrixl, JitsiMeet, and other such systems with rudimentaryvoice recognition.
A canvas-based conversation is worth exploring, but we deliberatelyaboid adding complex group infrastructure or management features - thisis purely for hashing out an idea synchronously. It's a space to focus.cabal seems to provide similar ideas andfacilities.
After this meeting is over, we automatically archive the chat; no morelinks can be created in order to prevent endless idea drift and growth.(Looking back, I think this is much more of a self-discipline issue thanone that can be solved with technology - we can create the right spacefor thought, but we can't necessarily enforce discipline).
After this archival process, all of the links to ideas in the chat stillwork and new links can be created between existing thoughts and ideas onthe page. The archived chat may have a different UI that helps browsehistory in a better way. Revisit Chapter 1 \| Chatting withGlue for more inspiration here…
Ideally, hashing out ideas feels instant and spontaneous - like youwould with a video call or meeting - but everything is in a controlledenvironment that can be later traced and documented. Inspired bysynchronous meetings and mailing list archives - we want the longetivityand traceability of a mailing list archive with the real time impact ofsynchronous meetings and the sponteneity of a viral tweet (share ideafrom a chat on twitter - \> implicitly invites others to chat - \> 1click signup to get into the chat room - no sign up concerns).
This is probably still worth exploring as an experiment, but I don'tthink there is a viable product here.