I’ve been hoping to get some more time to share my continuing Shinkuro Experiments.  I made a new friend today and more people have joined the "Shinkuro Experiments" group, although it is not clear to me how they found me (I think they read one of these blog posts).  Sky (the newest friend - Shinkuro terminology - we say member in SpinXpress) claims to know Joi Ito and is interested in collaborating on music projects. Cool.

I’ve been taking some rough notes and I hope to share those later in the week.  I hope that these notes will be useful to others and will not ruffle too many feathers.  Some may find it discomforting that a developer for one collaboration product might write about and compare it to a "competitor".  While I plan to be very candid in my observations, it is not so much my intention to dwell on little "bugs".  However, I may mention some (in my product, as well as others) so that people will be able to work around them and to help developers find and correct them (or me if I’m being a dope).

I am interested in the bigger issues that are common to collaborative tools.  For example, it seems clear that one of the central issues yet to be addressed by any secure personal internet is that of finding groups or spaces.  Same for people and resources.  Once we have a large number of groups, each containing a number of resources (files, urls, people, etc.), how do we locate them?  Also, when we first start using a product like Shinkuro or SpinXpress, how do we connect with others?  These are the main things I want to look at in future posts.

In the meantime, join in on the fun.  Get a copy of one of these products (Shinkuro, SpinXpress, etc.), create a group and invite me to it.  I’m app.etitio.us!shinkuro.com (for Shinkuro) and markus@outhink.com (for SpinXpress).  If you use another tool that you think I should try out, please let me know and I will.