Does Always Online Mean Always Available?

I read yesterday of what Stowe Boyd is now calling the "Simnett Context", named after Ed Simnett of Microsoft. As Stowe describes:

Kind of like a presence indicator for the instant message session itself. So the participant could query the IM session (perhaps by moving the cursor over the title region of the message, and getting a tooltip) and seeing the context.

Source: GetReal, "Ed Simnett's IM Context Insight: IM Planet Notes"

This actually got me to thinking about our ever-increasing connectedness and what it implies. Let's assume that I am always connected (not far from the truth). Despite this, I might not be available for access at the moment. Naturally, there are the traditional measures for indicating presence (1 - sign off, 2 - set away status). However, something more adaptive may be required in the future.

In the Simnett Context, the application passes contextual information along with the presence information and message. In this other context, however, I am imaging that there would be a User-Context Gateway. This gateway would be responsible for keeping tabs on what I am doing, who I am communicating with, and prioritizing alerts, requests, downlioads, etc. based on my activities and preferences.

The usage scenario might be likened to the "username is typing" status indicator on MSN. Although this does not prevent me from responding, it does alert me consciously that the other party is typing and raises the possibility for me to delay my response to see the forthcoming message. MSN's implementation is flawed primarily by that fact that the application as a whole listens for keystrokes as opposed to the individual message windows. This creates a scenario where if I am typing in a Word document, others see that I am typing, despite it not being directly related to them.

Another scenario that would be thwarted is the inadvertant loss of focus. IM can be a very distracting force in the workplace -- especially when individuals are engaged in work requiring concentration or verbal conversations. In addition, IM tends to pop windows in front of the individual taking application focus away. I can recount hundreds of times where I have been typing a document or editing code and it is accidentally sent over to an unassuming messenger.

Now imagine the world in this new context. It's 10 A.M.. I am busy editing a powepoint presentation for my meeting at 11 A.M.. John sends a message to me indicating he wants to meet for lunch. My User-Context Gateway activates automatically and queue's the message into a lower-priority bin for me to review later. John receives a status message notifying him that I am occupied and will be back at 12 P.M.. How does it know all of this? Well the system knows that John is in my Friends group as opposed to my Work group. It also knows, either adaptively of through explicit instructions, that when I work in Powerpoint I do not want to be disturbed. Hooking into my PIM, the system is also aware that I will be in a meeting from 11 - 12 and will be unavailable.

Several years ago, I had written an e-mail system that worked in this very manner. It was definintely not as intuituve or adaptive as the system I have just described, but it did provide a SmartResponder that was both time and day sensitive, with additional presence information to back it up. Of course, back then, people didn't believe me when I told them e-mail would be very important to their business lives and couldn't fathom that customers would quickly grow annoyed with delinquent or abrasive responses.

I would imagine there are about a million other uses and extensions for a system like this? Anyone know of something like this?