i think doc's quote from farallon founder reese jones on "social software" is spot on:

"All human communication, he said, is one-to-one. It's personal. Even in groups, we're only paying close attention to what one person says at a time. Reese was working towards a Ph.D. in some brain research specialty when he paused to found Farallon (inventing those nifty PhoneNet connectors that ran AppleTalk over phone wiring), and added a bunch of brainy facts I don't remember to this obvious but overlooked fact: our brains are purposefully restricted in their ability to listen. We may think we can hear two conversations at once, but we can't. Our brains only hear one conversation clearly. And to some degree they suck at that, because they're also built to forget most specifics after a few seconds and retain only meaning . When we compare what we remember verbatim to what we forget, the former rounds out to zero. What make quotes compelling is that they stand as exceptions to the forget-everything rule."

Reese so believed in the foundational importance of conversation that he made it Farallon's calling to produce "software for telephones." To him telephony's century-wide seniority over computing made it the more fundamental technology. "

if i may be so bold, this is what i'm dancing around when i quote the conversational technologies from peer-to-peer:

"Conversations provide a comfortable medium in which knowledge flows in both directions, and where contributors share an inherent context through their subjects and relationships. In addition to old forms of conversations--direct interaction and communication over the phone and in person--conversations are becoming an increasingly important part of the networked world. Witness the popularity of email, chat, and instant messaging, which enable users to increase the range and scope of their conversations to reach those that they may not have before.

"Still, little attention has been paid in recent years to the popular Internet channels that most naturally support conversations."