Comments on: Stocks and flows in online communication: another hat tip to Jerry Michalski

By: vielmetti

vielmetti — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:30:28 +0000

Jon – I like the minimum keystrokes rule, that’s a keeper. More later.

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:56:28 +0000

“if a person recently becomes interested in travel to Hawaii, then last years news might actually be good candidate for ‘flow’”

Sure. If somebody took the trouble to convert the flow of news into a stock, we can query it and turn it back into a flow.

Flows that never become stocks are just lost, though. My local newspaper’s website works that way. The stocks exist, sort of, but nobody can get at them (lousy search, paywalled archive), so they produce no new flows. It’s sad.

By: MikeD

MikeD — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 01:46:12 +0000

It seems to me that the distinction between stocks and flows is mainly about how relevant in time the information is to the person, but the article seems to use the mechanisms of delivery for the important distinction. I think sending notifications about or subscribing to last years news isn’t a good ‘flow’. However, if a person recently becomes interested in travel to Hawaii, then last years news might actually be good candidate for ‘flow’, even though it’s in an archive (a ‘stock’).

Another useful dimensions of information modelling is how much time and concentrated effort it takes to absorb the information (the attention cost).

(The right information, to the right person, at the right time… argh!)