Random thought I had while watching the WWDC keynote this morning, somewhat tangential to Civic Signals asking (scroll down) about what kinds of offline “third places” have any sort of online analogues: what if you could, say, open up Messages on your MacBook when you’re alone and working, and notify your contacts (or some specified subset of your contacts) that you are “available”. What I’m picturing is somewhat like when you go with people you know to get work done at a coffeeshop; everyone is working, but there’s a rolling, ongoing but intermittent chatty conversation happening; or someone finds something funny online and you all pause to check it out and then go back to what they were doing. Anyone’s who’s ever had a regular IRC channel will get the basic idea. These messaging sessions would be transient and expire, just like offline conversations do. Imagine even having a setting that would allow other contacts to “swing by” the group—the chosen group gets a notification that you’re “available”, but if you toggle this setting other people in the contacts of any group member who while in Messages notices that there’s a transient group happening could drop in and say hey, as if a friend saw you through the window of the coffeeshop and stopped in for a minute. None of this is groundbreaking; just spitballing. Temporary group chats with optional serendipitous visits, just like “real” life.