I agree with Jonathan and Zubair although I am sympathetic to Ken as well. Metaphors matter. A FaceBook post or Tweet are both messages consisting primarily of text... but if you think about it carefully, they do not function like an SMS message or an email, for example. Why not? Posts in a social media are not addressed to anyone in particular and, if we are not paying attention, simply pass us by in a “stream”. On the other hand, when people directly address an email or SMS to each other, it winds up in a personal inbox or a queue somewhere, not a stream. Senders generally expect recipients to read them. Or at least skim them. Eventually. Until we give up and delete the backlog every once and a while. Sigh…

Mataphors like inbox and streams matter: they communicate social conventions and functions that define a medium. The thing I love about the "stream" is that when I get busy and miss a lot of events I don’t have a huge backlog of messages to process in order to catch up. I'm not accountable for stuff I miss. The problem with the stream, on the other hand, is that it’s just too noisy, too diffuse. Good stuff gets lost in the flow all the time.

The room, however, is more focused than a stream and yet not as prescriptive or definite as an inbox. It’s a virtual place where people go to do something together. Sometimes. Although you may be invited and then allowed to enter a room where activities are happening, you are also free to leave. You can be notified when things are happening in the room or you can elect NOT to know when you are not present. I can choose to focus on some rooms, some of the time, and not others.

As someone who is often remote, I find it relatively easy to find quiet time to concentrate. However, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to be aware of ad-hoc meetings like this that are happening in a team room without tools like these… unless you are actually physically present.