I was minded of the OSI 7 layer network model which emerged from Xerox PARC in the 80's to help explain the new office networking protocols (IBM token ring anyone ?). In the same way that a simple network concept needed explaining by various chracterisations I wondered whether the European approach to networking had been incorporated into the above reflection on the use of Medium.

There is a thriving commentariat on UK newspaper websites which varies in metier and passion. There has been much progress in supporting such dialog in the move to mobile and as expected the tenor of the comments reflects the readership. Of course sometimes there are issues where debate becomes heated but by and large the end of article discussion can be said to represent one end of the transport of information in a subject debate ie more light than heat. Contrast this with the second screen stream of tweets that can accompany a TV program. The limited character count can often lead to a high noise rate as comments are hurriedly posted. As a result it can be said that numberoftweets was not necessarily correlated with quality.

Other online social networks hereabouts can be characterised by geography from a micro level (eg Streetlife) to city wide (eg aberdeenbusinessnetwork.ning.com) and nationally. Quality in these worlds is more subjective as one person’s backyard issue is of no consequence to someone else.

Finally, it is intriguing how a small area of pictorial real estate (screen) can be used to cradle a network of debate. The Microsoft on screen provision of tools is popular in academic environments where collaboration needs to be easily encouraged (and assessed). In my experience the ability in such integrated systems to easily pull in simply constructed explanatory images to enhance the prose is a key feature. However as with Medium there are sometimes frustrating formatting frustrations.