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That's not quite the way Boulder, Colo.-based Me.dium bills itself. Rather, the two-year-old startup says it is all about making online activities look more like they would offline, where no one goes shopping or goes to the movies in a vacuum, but instead, individuals encounter others along the way in a manner that turns even routine chores into somewhat social experiences. Me.dium offers a downloadable software that shows -- at least to other people with the software -- your online whereabouts so you can follow your friends online, or connect with other people who visit the same sites you do. "In the real world, if you walk down the street to buy a quart of milk, you are theoretically doing an individual task, but the reality is that on the way you will run into other people," explains David Mandell, Me.dium co-founder and head of marketing. "Me.dium brings more of that social context online." Mandell stresses that Me.dium is not a social network in any sense, but says the technology can be used to enhance the social networking experience, by giving Facebook or MySpace friends another way to connect. The company has not disclosed how many people have downloaded its software, but says it is enjoying growth, particularly in the 18 to 24 age group, and notes that as its ranks grow the service will naturally improve, potentially transforming a lonely small town Main Street into a crowded Times Square with more people to watch and run into. Mandell says there are some parallels to virtual worlds such as Second Life, the difference being that "ours isn't a made-up world." Why would people willingly part with one of the last remnants of online privacy and make their online surfing habits -- including all the time they waste -- available for others to see? Mandell notes that those surfing patterns are already being watched ... by big corporate marketers who know the data is invaluable. "We are returning more of that value to the individual user," he notes. "It's not Big Brother watching anymore. Your online activity is your asset, and you should have control of it. [Me.dium] lets you surf the Internet with other real people." Among the value Me.dium offers users are recommendations of potential sites of interest, based on the movement of other members. Venture capitalists have been quick to pick up on that value. Last summer, the company raised $15 million in a Series B round, bringing the total amount raised to $20 million, from Commonwealth Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Appian Ventures and Brad Field, the managing director of Mobius Venture Capital. If Me.dium's success to date points to individual's ever-increasing comfort sharing personal information with strangers, its real value may not be what it offers those individuals but the value it can bring to advertisers. While most existing maps of the Internet are based on the links that exist between different sites, Me.dium's software is likely to expose other connections that are less intuitive, such as all the people who go to a site without clicking a link from another site to get there. Conventional wisdom, for instance, says that people will go to Amazon after learning about a certain book or other item of interest. In reality, they may have no specific reason to go there, but just wander in to browse from another totally unrelated site. "Me.dium is creating a real-time map of the Internet's topography," says Mandell. "That data is invaluable. And we leave it up to the individual to decide whether or not to share it." Among the privacy protections Me.dium has incorporated are an on/off switch that lets users make themselves invisible whenever they want. The service is also designed to automatically switch to "off" mode whenever a user visits a password-protected site, such as a bank or brokerage account, though Mandell notes that has been a tricky challenge and the company is constantly adding to its list of blocked sites. The company has not yet put forth a clear revenue model, but based on all the data it collects from willing users, Mandell says he does not expect to have the same challenges monetizing the site that so many social networks are now struggling with. - Andrea Orr See June 11, 2007, story on Me.dium's latest venture funding from TechConfidential.com
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A funny thing about Internet privacy: As some parties lobby harder and harder to protect it, others are voluntarily giving it away over social networking sites, personal blogs and now 
