Ever feel lonely out there surfing the web? On second thought, does anyone use the phrase "surfing the web" anymore? Anyway, until I heard about Me.dium, I’d never really considered this question before. I mean, lonely? Reading blog posts, checking up on Facebook pals, commenting on some fan boards . . . how could anyone be lonely? But then again, these are all traces of people– left behind words and ideas, hardly real time. The closest thing to feeling the presence of someone else on the web may be a text or video chat. However, these still tend to take place in areas of the web built for that specific purpose. When I’m surfing, cruising, or clicking, the time on the web is ultimately pretty lonely.

Me.dium hopes to change that. They’re certainly not the first app to attempt something like this; however, freshly out of beta stage, they are generating quite a bit more buzz than the previous attemptees. From what I can tell, loading the Me.dium software puts a map and chat window in the side of your browser that lets you see who else is currently on that same webpage (if they also have the app installed, of course). If so inclined, you can strike up a chat conversation with them. Me.dium will also make a personalized map of your internet travels and suggest similar pages of interest that you can visit.

It sounds potentially interesting. Something that could be fun with a group of people who are already friends; or who knows, maybe another social tool for meeting and networking. A million questions come to mind too. Foremost, is this really something I want to do? Personally, I feel like I browse with a considerable degree of purpose in mind and this sounds more distracting than anything. And are people really ready to make appointment-based web browsing (they do already pre-plan MMORPG time, so who knows). There also seem to be a slew of privacy and intrusion concerns (though the Me.dium website makes it clear that you can instantly turn the app off and that it doesn’t work on secure sites). And then let’s face it, people go some freaky places on the net. You might be the biggest Japanese tentacle porn fan out there– this doesn’t mean you necessarily want to meet up with other like minded folk.

Based on reading some user reviews, the early adopters seem to think it’s all pretty cool. The biggest complaint seems to be a lack of any genuine crowds to be found; although, this makes sense considering the app lives or dies based on how many people are using it. If something like this was to get huge, it would be a fundamental change to how we approach and think about web browsing. But is it one we want? I’m torn. But I think I’m gonna at least check it out and report back later. Anybody wanna join me on the Avril fan boards