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Now that the USPTO has awarded Holocene a wide-reaching patent, what is your timeline for releasing a product?
	That depends on capitalization and leadership. In fact, the sheer range of opportunities and services that Holocene covers may be a bit daunting! What we apparently "own" - in very broad IP terms - is an entire range of online tool sets that implement online things that human beings already do in real life. So when Holocene-based products start appearing, you can bet they will be demanded just about everywhere. It has been suggested that we simply sit back and wait for the online world to wake up and start using these tricks, then cash in on the IP. That would be awfully trollish! Far better to use this position to promote exciting productivity tools, getting them into the hands of users much faster. Isn't that the deep justification for IP?
Can you give me an example of allowing computer-assisted filtering of the content of other users
	Say you're at a party, listening intently to the person who you're facing. Even though you are facing that person, listening intently, if someone else behind you -- even some distance away -- mentions your name, or some of your other hot-button words, those words will leap right out of the muttering noise of the room! Ever notice that? Your brain may even fill in a sentence or two that came before your name was mentioned! We are amazing creatures. Holocene Chat will empower people to do some of the same wonderful things online, using a vastly adaptable tool set to prioritize, divide attention, allocate focus, and generally be more than they are.
What about"memory ageing" and "gisting"?
	We struggled to come up with names for some of those human skills that people use all the time in real life, yet seem to have gone unnoticed by e-designers. "Memory Ageing" is one of those human skills. Think about how you follow a thread of spoken conversation. You don't keep a running transcript of every word the other person says. What sticks in memory is the 'gist' of their overall meaning. Maybe some key words or phrases struck you, so you put them aside for recollection and perhaps some action or commentary. Holocene tries to implement this for you, so that the 'gist' of several ongoing conversations can be kept available while your attention moves around, as it does so often in real life. Even better than real life, you can create, store and interlace intelligent transcripts that let you go beyond the "gist" to the ACTUAL content of the conversation, at any time in the past. As for the potential of "gisting" services that emulate real human mental function, the sky's the limit. Some VERY sophisticated text and syntax AI software now exists, some of it government subsidized, that can find a proper niche in Holocene, reaching its potential only in this patented interface. Imagine that. Online discourse that is BETTER than real life, instead of dumbed-down and useless? Imagine.
How does the orientation function work?
	How does orientation work in real life? You turn and face the person whose opinions or conversation matter most to you, at that moment. It is all part of bringing natural focus talents to the online "attention economy." And yet, turning to face somebody doesn't mean that you are completely ignoring others! Many people can keep tracking (to a limited degree) conversations going on behind their backs... or even some distance away! On-screen, Holocene Chat will amplify those abilities in amazing ways.
Let's get down to details. How does HCM allow each listener to maintain a presence online?
	Each person has a presence onscreen. It can be an all-business data and text window, with dozens of collaboration tools. Or it could be a sexy avatar, with all of these tools deftly tucked away. (We don't object to avatars, or fun, or flirtation! We just think that users should have the OPTION of doing -- and being -- much more.) There are some clever tricks to let a large number of people show up, even on a small, wireless monitor display. Prioritization helps the user pay more attention to those he or she finds most interesting, by copying natural techniques that people use in a gathering such as a party or some other real life event.
You've spoken of revolutionizing "chat" and "meetingware." What about those other features -- hosting, virtual world-building and gaming?
	Beyond chatrooms, avatar spaces, blogspheres and meetingware, Holocene also offers a unique way that corporations and groups -- even amateurs -- might build their own worlds or else create new game environments. In the short term, these worlds and games would be relatively simple -- plug, place and play. For example, a high-tech conference might map a Holocene Virtual World onto the Convention Center and nearby hotels, in order to help members to sift and find like-minded others, or "sample" display booths, or leave notes or create virtual displays, on on a portable device. (See this illustrated in our "guided tour.") Other users might get more imaginative, creating adventure worlds with a simple, easy-to-use tool kit. Later, more sophisticated options should become available quickly, if an open source approach encourages user innovation. The great advantage of Holocene as a world-building environment will be simplicity and ease of use. A method far more accessible to the average amateur than the complex world-building interfaces now available.
So one group of potential customers will be small businesses and others who want to be able to hold inexpensive but effective meetings online. What about site-hosting?
	Hosting is where you create a site with the aim and desire of drawing lots of visitors. Sometimes paying visitors, sometimes benefitting through advertising or other business models. In order to do this, you offer visitors something they want -- usually information or services or a special experience. Drawing new members to an online community can either pay through advertising (an over-used profit model during the nineties, but still valid) or else by creating a willingness on the part of millions of clients to pay a monthly fee. Or else by drawing them to engage in an economic activity on the site, as you see at eBay. Take MySpace, which has attracted a majority of American teens to set up web pages. The resulting participant list is almost beyond price. One service offered by many online ISP companies -- like AOL and Earthlink -- is to set up chat-rooms... places where people can gather to discuss any chosen topic or shared interest. Right now, competition between ISP hosts is stagnant in the area of chat, because all of them use pretty much the same technology. Today's chat-rooms are places that any busy grownup -- or serious teenager -- would find horribly stupid and tedious. Imagine that one large ISP suddenly began offering chat or conversation spaces that felt comfortable, useful, effective... and human. Would all of the other ISP companies feel a need to follow through, offering similar services? Our business model -- and our patent -- suggest that this will offer a rapidly profitable customer base for Holocene products.
What role does bandwidth have to play?
	High bandwidth pipes, like T1 lines, let you send full streaming video back and forth. It's easy to hold an e-meeting with a setup like that. Just arrange a bunch of TV cameras and screens, pass their signals through a router and... voila. A dozen government officials or corporate executives can yatter at each other just as if they were in the same room. Exchanging files and marking up documents may take a bit more finesse. Well, a lot more finesse, which is why it's taken them a while. It's a race to see whether the big, fancy systems will deliver that kind of functionality first. Maybe Holocene will. We think we can deliver much of the functionality -- the ability to exchange views and files and information in a very human way -- at a tiny fraction of the bandwidth and cost. Oh, about bandwidth, we are emerging from an era when a bandwidth "glut" seemed likely to last forever. But just look at the usage curves, especially for wireless portable devices. Did you really think we had entered a new age, when efficiency would never again matter?
Will Holocene tools be built using open protocols and standards to allow for the widest range of use on the maximum number of desktop platforms?
	We are friendly to open source and open protocols. Our aim is, after all, to create a very general pallette of creative tools - like HTNL - that will let hosts create a wild variety of "worlds". Some may resemble avatar worlds like Second Life. Some will be company meetingware collaboration zones. And so on. This can only happen if thousands of innovators feel happy about picking up the pallette and unleashing their creativity. This does not mean that the patent isn't important. There are many well-known business models that allow the original IP owners to ride a new technological wave, rewarded for their innovation WHILE empowering others to ride the wave, too.
When you say "interface," do you mean our ability to accurately understand one another in e-conversations - e.g. not misinterpreting messages because of the lack of tone in text alone)?
	There are several dozen things that we do unconsciously during spoken conversations -- especially in crowded and complex situations like cocktail parties or social functions. Or team collaborations. These talents and skills have long been ignored online, in the hurry to offer people gaudy hi-tech frills. Take so-called "avatars" for example - cartoony figures with flapping mouths. These silly animated mockeries were offered to customers as 'major improvements'. Meanwhile, the real content -- peoples' words and information -- are being presented in a jumbled mess. No change in the effective art of communications. We're trashing the old word-jumble and starting over, by going back to the beginning, the Holocene Era -- when people first started "chatting" to one another near the barbeque, while roasting mammoth and bison. These so-called "cavemen" were human too -- just as sophisticated, deep inside, as you or me. They had needs and desires that felt urgent and vividly detailed. They learned amazing skills at how to exchange views with their fellows. Skills that you use at a meeting or party, unconsciously, without thinking about them. Our task -- a remarkably easy one -- has been to take some of these neglected skills and translate them onto a computer screen.
You say that "the need and market for an improved interface grows evident." Could you explain?
	People have already begun to notice the lack of synchronous online "meetingware" for grownups. For several years the U.S. government has invested in Project Genoa, an effort to give federal officials rapid, high-definition channels for appearing together in electronic meetings that have the look and feel of being there. Like in some futuristic sci fi movie, everybody will be present by video face-image. Also you'll be able to exchange - and mark-up - documents, give presentations, display and discuss evidence. Industry has started to take notice. There are some fancy technologies in the pipeline, for five years or so from now. But that leaves out two important areas. First -- what do we do in the meantime, during those five years? And second -- what about the rest of us? Those of us who don't have a big, fat, high-bandwidth T1 line. Even DSL will be choked by these bandwidth-hog programs, reserving high-end meetingware for elites. As it turns out, Holocene Chat will deliver much of the same functionality, offering excellent and functional meetingware within a year of commencing full development. And it will provide access to anyone with a 28K modem. Moreover, Holocene will offer a more flexible range of approaches. It does not have to be used synchronously, for example. A surrogate virtual presence can perform many functions for you, even if you are not "present" in a Holocene virtual world.
What is wrong with "chat" as we know it today?
	What's right about it? The standard chat interface consists of brief, mutually-interrupting text snippets -- often not even finishing a thought or a sentence -- shuffled together like randomized cards in one big, upward-scrolling pile. That's conversation? One of us (Brin) experimented with exactly the same interface at Caltech, using several teletypes that were distributed around campus, way back in 1972! ("It never occurred to me that such a kludged, dopey interface would still be the standard 30 years later." -- DB) Look, there's nothing wrong with teens flirting shallowly online. They'll still be able to do that - and strut around with sexy avatars - on any Holocene-agumented world. But let's recall that this generation is actually writing down more words, by far, than any other that ever lived! Shouldn't some of these people be empowered to write some of those words with more sophistication, interest, realism, passion and creativity, if that happens to be what they want to do? We plan to end the forced lobotomization of online conversation.
Why is realtime or synchronous onscreen interaction better than onscreen interaction where the originator and the recipient do not normally share the same area of cyberspace at the same time?
	Realtime communication isn't better, it's different. Half of the potential of the Internet is there, waiting to be tapped. But it's been thwarted so far. At least for adults... and for youths who want to express meanings more sophisticated than "ROFL." In fact, most grownups have managed to compensate for today's wretched synchronous interface by doing just about everything asynchronously -- using methods in which the content provider and user don't have to be online in the same place, at the same time. Email, downloads, web hits and even so-called "instant messaging" are all effective ways of exchanging information in packages -- like exchanging old fashioned letters. They work fine... that is, if you don't need the kind of flexibility that comes only from a rapid, back-and-forth process between several people. That kind of rapid, back-and-forth exchange is called "conversation." Real-life conversations are filled with statements, mis-statements, misunderstood phrases, nuances, error-detections, corrections, and so on as people stumble toward mutual understanding. We learn over a lifetime to do this in person, aided by many instincts that we take for granted, inherited from distant ancestors. Unfortunately, it's just about hopeless -- at present -- to do this online. The present "chat" interface is so dismal that it's only good for teenagers gushing to each other about rock stars. Or for exchanging short-tempered insults. Avatar worlds are no better. For grownups who are failing to communicate by email, the only solution right now is to go offline. Make an old-fashioned telephone call. But that may change. We'll show the world how easy that will be.
You have a very small team of guys who are already very busy in other successful careers. What would it take to launch Holocene in a big way and how soon will it happen?
	If this were 1998, I'd say next week! We'd get flooded with venture capital, partner with some nineties guys who are sick of this sluggish decade, hire some Jolt-swilling programmers to polish details and get the Beta out. Two weeks, tops. Heck, our alpha version is already damned sophisticated. But it's the 2000s - the naughty oughts. So we'll do what garage inventors always have done, innovating in slivers of spare time, (Got lots of other things on the fire!) Knowing that time is on our side. Because these deeply basic (and patented) modalities WILL be used during the coming decade. People will grow tired of online-shallowness. They'll want to exchange information, opinions, discourse, work and fun with some of the subtlety of real life. We'll be ready when they are.