- Talk to a person.
- Join a group conversation
- Write a letter to a person
- Write a letter to the editor
- Call a person on the phone
- Call into a broadcast show
- Participate in a conference call
- SMS (text) on cell phone
- IM a person
- Join an IRC or IM chat room
- Update your status on your IM service
- Send a message on a social networking site
- Update your status on your social networking site
- Tweet
- Write a blog post
- Comment on a blog post
- Post a comment on a forum
- Send a message in your virtual world or MMORPG
- Produce a podcast
- Participate in a webcast
- Um, yikes, that's a lot, but it's not hard to come up with more. Put a message in a bottle. Update a bug report. Post a sign. Spray-paint your house. Wear a message T-Shirt. Put a bumper sticker on your car ...
I'm limiting (yes, limiting) myself here to things a typical individual might be expected to do, so writing a magazine article or holding a nationally televised press conference wouldn't count. Even so, there's a seemingly limitless supply of ways to send a message.
When faced with such abundance, a plausible explanation is combinatorial explosion -- a reasonably small number of factors which can be combined in a large number of ways. What are some possible factors?
- Cardinality: How many senders and how many receivers are there? The choices for each are one or more than one (denoted N) This is why I distinguished calling a person from joining a conference call or phoning into a show.
- Symmetry: Are there specific roles, e.g., sender and receiver, or is everyone on an equal footing?
- Potential recipients: Who could possibly receive the message, or perhaps better, what group do you need to belong to in order to be able to receive a message?
- Potential senders: For the purposes of this exercise, this is generally "Anyone" (though in some cases it's narrower).
- Access control: Who controls who can send or receive?
- Persistence: Can the message be expected to be permanently available to the recipient? This would be within the messaging system. Once a message is received, the recipient can generally keep a private copy and/or resend it.
- Latency: How much time typically passes between sending and receiving? Latency can be higher or lower. It can also be arbitrary, as in the case of forums and email.
- Bandwidth: The maximum rate at which information can be transferred
- Message size
- Anonymity: Does the sender typically know who is receiving? Does the receiver typically know who's sending? If so, can one easily make oneself anonymous?
So does that help sort anything out? If it does, we should see a fairly wide variety of combinations, keeping in mind that some particular combinations may not make sense. For example, 1:N cardinality implies asymmetry and persistence generally implies arbitrary latency. Let's see what we've got (the table below is too wide for this layout, so I made it scrollable. Here's how)
Mechanism | Cardinality | Symmetric? | Potential receivers | Access controller(s) | Persistent? | Bandwidth | Message size | Latency | Anonymity |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Talk to a person | 1:1 | Yes | Anyone | Participants | No | High | Arbitrary | Negligible | None |
Group conversation | N:N | Yes | Anyone | Participants | No | High | Arbitrary | Negligible | None |
Letter to person | 1:1 | No | Anyone | Participants | Yes | Low | Small | Days | Possible for sender |
Letter to editor | 1:N | No | Subscribers | Editor | Yes | Low | Small | Days | Possible for sender |
Call person | 1:1 | Yes, except at start | Anyone | Participants | No | Medium | Arbitrary | Generally negligible, enough to be annoying in some cases | Possible for caller or receiver |
Call show | 1:N | No | Listeners/viewers | Producers | Typically | Medium | Generally limited | Generally negligible | Possible for caller; audience is anonymous |
Conference call | N:N | Depends. In some cases only some participants can talk. | Depends. Passcode may be required | Moderator | Depends | Medium | Arbitrary | Generally negligible | Possible |
SMS | 1:1 | No | Service subscribers | Service provider | Yes | Low | Small | Arbitrary | To the extent phone numbers can be anonymous |
1:1 or 1:N | No | Anyone with email (doesn't matter who provides the email service) | No one, except that various providers may try to screen out spammers | Yes | Low for typed text, can be high for large attached files | Varies, but generally at least megabytes | Arbitrary | Possible | |
IM | 1:1 | Yes, except at start | Service participants | Service provider | Optionally | Low (again excepting file attachments) | Low (again excepting file attachments) | It's "instant" messaging, right? | Possible |
Chat room | N:N | Yes, except at start | Service participants | Service provider (for access to service), moderator, in some cases (for access to room) | Optionally | As with IM | As with IM | As with IM | Possible |
IM Status update | 1:N | No | Service participants | Service provider | May or may not be archived; persists until changed | Low | Small | Arbitrary | None |
Social network message | 1:1 or 1:N | No | Service participants | Participants, service provider | Yes | Low | Generally small | Arbitrary | None |
Social network status update | 1:N | No | Service participants | Service provider | As with IM status | Low | Small | Arbitrary | Default state for readers |
Tweet | 1:N | No | Anyone with a web connection or cell phone | Service provider (Twitter) | Yes | Low | Small | Arbitrary | Possible for sender, default state for readers |
Blog post | 1:N | No | Anyone with a web connection | Blog author | Yes | Low | Smallish | Arbitrary | Possible for author, default state for readers |
Blog comment | 1:N | No | Anyone with a web connection | Blog author | Yes | Low | Smallish | Arbitrary | Possible for author of comment |
Forum comment | 1:N | No | Anyone with a web connection | Moderator | Yes | Low | Smallish | Arbitrary | Possible for author |
Virtual world/MMORPG message | 1:N | No | Service participants | Service provider | No | Low | Small | Generally negligible | Players go by pseudonyms |
Podcast | 1:N | No | Anyone with a web connection | Creator | Yes | Medium | Largish | Arbitrary | Possible for creator, default state for audience |
Webcast | 1:N or N:N | Depends, as with conference call | Anyone with a web connection | Moderator | Possibly | Low | Low | Generally negligible | Possible |
One could argue over particular entries, some of the terms could be better defined, and I could add other factors, for example privacy, but it's pretty clear that combinatorial explosion is exactly what's going on. There are a zillion different ways of sending messages because there are a zillion possible combinations of features one might like.
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