Post-it notes on the fridge

In the opening lines of an article about new chat-room interfaces, New York Times reporter Brad Stone makes a very succinct comparison.

People visit each other’s MySpace pages and Facebook profiles at various hours of the day, posting messages and sending e-mail back and forth across the digital void. It’s like an endless party where everybody shows up at a different time and slaps a yellow Post-it note on the refrigerator.

The “notes on the fridge” analogy is spot-on. Not so sure about the party part. Right now, it’s more like the afterparty. It’s where the mementos of real life – photos, video and even anecdotes – set up house.

But sometimes social-media spaces are more like board games. Some days it’s checkers. Other times it’s chess. A new conversation is akin to the opening move of a new game. A reply is a response to someone else’s move. And for anyone who plays Scrabulous, Facebook literally is a board game.

The main piece of news in Stone’s article is a new 3D chat application called Vivaty. It looks curiously like Second Life, but it’s a platform-agnostic app. And it’s backed by some deep V.C. pockets. Whether or not it will bring some life to the aforementioned party, that’ll depend on its functionality and how users respond to it.