Me.dium — Don’t Make Me Think!

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As part of a BzzAgent campaign, I recently tested me.dium and I’m not too impressed.

me.dium is a Colorado-based start-up that meshes attention, browsing, chat into a social browsing experience.  The idea behind me.dium is to let you see and communicate in real-time with your friends and other people online who are "approximately close" to you, based on what sites you are visiting on the Internet.  It is Implemented as a browser add-on and currently only works in Firefox and Flock; me.dium continuously captures your locations on the Web (i.e. which sites or services you are using), sends this data to the centralized server and computes a map of other sites and users that it determines is relevant, based on your context.

The social browsing aspect occurs when you are able to see others browsing the same URL you are on.  You can, if you choose, chat with others also simply by clicking on their username.  In their view, a community can be created around browsing, by allowing you to visualize who else is viewing what you are viewing and allowing you to communicate with those people via instant message. 

The Idea Behind Me.dium

According to the company web site, our decisions are influenced by the decisions of others.  Whether shopping for a car or choosing a movie or a restaurant, we often rely on the judgement and recommendations of others.  Geographical proximity plays an important role, as we often strike conversations with complete strangers in order to find the "best deal".  So the founders of me.dium asked the natural question: Why not do the same online?

Don’t Make Me Think

The idea is intriguing, but not helpful.  We are bombarded with data — and social browsing is another implementation of data ruining our peace.  We want information, which is filtered, helpful, and pragmatic to us.  I pesonally do not find Me.dium helpful.  Interesting, but not helpful. 

Also, the current implementation is not intuitive.  The sidebar opens up in a small window and the instant message client feels clunky.  Again, it’s information overload — not helpful in a world already full of data. 

One of the principles in the very good book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition), is the notion of "Reducing Noise".  For me, Me.dium only increases it: Me.dium makes me think, and I don’t like it.

Privacy Concerns

This is a concern for some groups, but Me.dium has done a good job of making it easy for others not to view your browsing habits.  And, for sites where privacy is important, such as viewing your bank account, Me.dium suspends their tracking of you and that implementation looks like this:

Clogged Arteries

Bandwidth and capacity is currently an issue for Me.dium.  When I first joined, I invited several of my friends from my GMAIL contact list.  Not a single one was able to sign-up because Me.dium didn’t have the capacity to accept more users.  Needless to say, this was a bad customer experience for the potential registrants and Me.dium lost an opportunity for growth. 

Conclusion

I don’t personally find Me.dium intuitive.  The current implementation makes it difficult to experience the social browsing aspect of the service; the instant message client is small and not helpful.  The idea behind social browsing is intriguing, but doesn’t help my life any more; in fact, it adds more complexity to it by increasing the noise and makes me think when what I really need is relief from the clutter. 

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