Matt Pope on the Groove experiment: reaching closure

Matt Pope reflects on the recent Groove experiment:

As John B. and Hugh mentioned and Jon U. reported, the dynamics of social or professional interaction change immensely when the transition from private to public happens. It felt unnatural and outside of Groove's domain to be in a shared space full of strangers. I lost context. The experience confirmed - for me - my original position; public space is the domain of programs like Radio, while private space is the domain of a program like Groove. Both are good, but they are different (reference Jon's list of strength and weaknesses for Groove and weblogs).

The challenge is in making the transitions more organic.

Jeroen's public groovespace experiment helped crystallize why public groovespace is unnatural. In blogspace, interface and style and context are wholly personal. Not so in groovespace, where individuals share the space. I learned quickly when I met my wife that an unmade bed and messy countertops would be unacceptable in our shared space, i.e. our home. [Matt Pope's Radio Weblog]

Here's one other observation. The fact that this particular Groove space has been shut down might seem, from a non-Groove perspective, like failure. It wasn't. The space had served its purpose. This idea of disposable spaces is something Groovers take for granted, but it's a bit unusual from a web perspective. On the web, blogs and discussions form, and then either thrive indefinitely or fade away, but they are hardly ever explicitly terminated and deleted. The "Delete Shared Space" feature of Groove is quite an interesting thing. It brings closure.

As Michael Herman has been pointing out, content that ages and matures can flow to searchable archives. (And these may be public or private, according to need.) But Groove shared spaces, while they can be long-running, are also well suited to activities that have specific goals, and can come to closure.