I started capturing IM transcripts of moments like these a few years ago and have a bit of an archive going. Have always wondered if there was value I could mine from them, like a book, a lecture or a blog post.

But so far, when I let others read them, if the reader wasn’t there at the time, it doesn’t seem to matter how much pre-story explanation I give, the magic isn’t apparent.

However, the people who were involved in the transcript are taken right back to that moment and enjoy it immensely.

So lately I’ve been wondering if there’s something in the idea of a web service that ‘plays’ IM transcripts, using the time/date stamps for timing with some play/skip/replay controls. Let people who were original participants annotate it with their reflections on it with hindsight. Maybe add soundtrack and editing controls.

Anyway, probably only a tiny, niche audience of fellow web development people who’d be interested in it, but I’d love to be able to do it.

looking forward to seeing you folks at Graphing Social Patterns in San Diego next week

- dmc