Digital Notepassing and the Backchannel

For anyone that's attended a conference as of late has probably experienced the backchannel before. If not, it's essentially a mix of technologies in place (IRC, IM, Blogs, E-mail, whatever) that lets the participants in the room or conference or world participate in the event.

Predominantly the backchannel serves the better good. People use it to continue discussion, provide hyperlinks, ask questions and things of that nature. Of course, there's potential for some other forms of chatter. The most obvious kind, of course, is to ridicule the speaker or complain about the topic.

Well things are progressing in new and interesting directions. Here's the scoop:

Passing notes in the classroom is probably as old as formal education itself, but the advent of cell phones and other sophisticated handheld devices has elevated this communication to a digital art form.

The growing number of Web-enabled wireless hotspots at universities, corporate campuses, coffee shops and elsewhere has further enabled real-time, behind-the-scenes conversations, making them increasingly difficult to control.

Researchers have coined the term "digital backchannel" for the secondary electronic chatter that occurs in response to primary discourse from a main speaker or group. And they note that these conversations aren't confined to the classroom.

Source: USATODAY.com, "Digital note-passing gains respect among adults"

I'm sure this is a trend that will continue in the future. The trick is creating leverage around this generated content.