I am not the first to report on such things, as a quick google search turns up “disturbance in the force” comments dating back a year or more and as recently as this past May.

I think this sort of “global” consciousness (which is, I suppose, a preliminary version of “galactic consciousness”) is something we’re seeing more and more of.

It can only get more precise and ubiquitous with mobile versions. SMS and MMS are interesting but as “dyadic” communication they are slow to propagate and subject to much higher error rate and degradation over time.

Many to many media, like twitter/blogs, provide a platform for “group-forming” software (see David Weinberger’s 2001 interview with David Reed for details on the math/impact of network effects as they are affected by group-forming) and the resulting explosion of network value.

The discussion about memes being ubiquitous and there being many inventors of most inventions (as Gladwell has reported) also figures into this discussion, I believe. As does Surowiecki’s writing on the Wisdom of Crowds).

Anyway, the whole business came alive for me again this morning when I saw a post for a new bit of software called Moody or Not. Take a look at that, and imagine a mobile version, helping you keep up-to-date - and helping you contribute to that global stream of consciousness - in a ubiquitous way. The power of feedback is part of the solution, but as Reed’s Law makes apparent and Seb’s corrollary clarifies, software that enables/makes easy group-forming is the key to adding value by linking people.

PS: For more on the Twitterverse and the quake, see also the online journalism blog and Ingram’s piece in the Globe and Mail.