Both the Lekplay online courtship server and the Govmesh local governance project will utilize a new social technology: the Tangle chatblog engine. Both projects begin with an understanding that the human organism is always already in relation to others. Focused neither on the individual nor the group, but rather on the processes by which individual and group identities are coordinated, Tangle-based sites will represent a marked departure from existing social networking services and online communities.
Social networks are about things: nodes and
connections on a graph; a profile marks a person; a post
becomes a place, a location where comments are left or not.
Objects in space. Sociality is about process: moments and
encounters intertwined; identity embodied through action;
communication flows, as worlds coincide and diverge. Movement
through time. Developed in
Erlang
Defining features of the Tangle engine will include contribution mechanisms that obviate any distinction between posts and comments, a web-of-trust moderation scheme that balances inclusivity with safety, a bookmarking architecture that dynamically weaves together communication flows and social media sources, a semantic document standard sensitive to both device form-factor and social context, and integration with personal and institutional event management tools and traditional information channels—bridging the gap from online to offline communities.
Neither chat nor blog, and yet both, Tangle chatblogging will flow freely from banter to long-form writing to in-person meeting and back again.
Once built for and tested as part of the Lekplay server, the Tangle engine will be deployed for our third project ⇒.