In this day in age, those of us that have chosen to dive head first into the social web are bombarded with communication from every angle. Information overload is a very real thing, and I believe the need for software to help us filter and prioritize this information will grow exponentially in the coming years.

So I have an idea, or the early stages of an idea, and I wanted to get it out there for discussion. Let’s start at the beginning, where all solutions should start – with the problem.

The Problem:
* Most people are now a part of one or more social networks and the communication we recieve daily is no longer limited to email and phone calls. To build networks that help us professionally, many of us are ‘loosely’ connected to people that we hardly know (especially on Twitter). There is a hope that these relationships will grow into more meaningful, personal contacts.  Due to all of these relationships, there is a proliferation of communication channels. It can be easy to let the connections that are truly the most important (your core network) fall by the wayside when we’re preoccupied with everything else.

The Solution:
To simplify our lives, I believe there is a need for an application that aggregates all of the communication from the people that matter most in one spot – while excluding the rest. Let me explain.

If you consider all of your digital communication channels, only a subset of them are actually directed at you. For example, if you follow a friend on Twitter (or follow their Facebook status updates, etc.) you are getting lots of information that may be interesting, but isn’t directed at you. Out of all the messages directed at you, only a portion of them are from people in your core network.

So the first problem this application should solve is to filter out everything that A. isn’t directed at you, and B. isn’t from someone in your core network.

When I think about all of the messages that meet these criteria, it makes sense to categorize them into two buckets:
1. Active Communication – These are messages that reasonably expect a prompt response. Instant messages (Google Chat, AIM, Skype IM, Facebook chat, etc.), text messages, and voice calls (Skype, phone) fall into this category.
2. Latent Communication – These are messages that don’t typically require a response right away. Most people aren’t offended if you wait a day or two to answer an email or a Facebook message for example.

I’m thinking the user interface for this would look similar to TweetDeck, with one column for the ‘active’ channels, and one for the ‘latent’ channels.  You should be able to sort by contact (showing all messages from them in one spot, no matter how they were sent) or by chronological order.

This app shouldn’t require anyone in your core network to join. It’s a tool for you. The fact that you’re using it, should be transparent. That brings me to the next feature. When you respond to messages in this tool, the responses should go out through the same channel the initial messages came in. For example, if you’re replying to a text message using this app, your friend will receive a text message. If you’re replying to an email using the app, your friend will receive an email. So it shouldn’t matter how the messages are coming in.

For any of this to work, the user will be required to define their ‘core network’ (most likely family and very close friends). I think this ‘core network’ should be limited to about 20 people. Why you ask? Because the value of the app will never be realized if the user just dumps all their contacts in there. Remember, the idea is seperate out the conversations that matter most – to prevent other things from taking up more of your time than they should. This area is a little fuzzy, however, since people generally get uncomfortable (understandably) when they are asked to ‘rank’ their friends. So maybe the user will only be required to specify the top 20 contacts, without ranking them 1-20.  And maybe the user wouldn’t have to define the list at all.  It could possibly be suggested to them based on who they interact with most in email (think Xobni).  That could at least get them started with a list they could modify.

A few other features that I think would fit well here:
* Birthday reminders for the core network
* Reports showing you how long it’s been since you’ve connected with each person in the network

You might be saying to yourself, this sounds like FriendFeed.  Although FriendFeed is a great idea, I don’t think it solves this problem.  With FriendFeed you get to see all of your friends’ activities across social networks in one place – but you’re still getting all that noise and it’s not focused on the communication directed at you.  And this isn’t Xobni either.  Althought Xobni is another great service, it doesn’t take into account all the communication happening outside of email.

Well that’s the start of the idea.  I wanted to get it out there.  If anyone would like to discuss this in greater detail and throw some more ideas up on the wall, leave a comment here.  Or, of course, you could contact me via one of my many social networks ;-)