[Freedombox-discuss] feature request - expandable status categories

[danover@comcast.net (Dan Overholtzer)]

Hi. There is a capability that I hope would be fairly simple to implement,  
but which I believe could greatly enhance adoption by academic interests.

If Twitter-like status updates can be categorized according to an  
expandable list, each with its own list of recipients, then the format  
could become a boon to researchers and certain commercial interests. One  
application would be biometric monitoring. We don't want to collect a lot  
of medical information about ourselves if that information is not secure.  
If it is secure, then we might choose to offer certain types to  
researchers, as well as our biomedical monitoring companies.

Any kind of real-time monitoring, like very-local weather conditions or  
dietary habits, might then be improved through the data contributions of  
interested parties; as it is with the distributed computation of SETI.

Thus, the possibility of being able to collect large amounts of data for a  
trivial cost could drive the early adoption by the technically proficient  
research sector, without detracting from its usefulness as social media.

Best wishes,

Dan