Garden Walls: Keeping People In, Keeping People Out

It may be hard to believe, but even people who provide tech support need support every so often.  And sometimes we learn something new in the process.

It happened to me this weekend when we lost our Internet connection at home.  I contacted our ISP, explained our situation and what we were seeing on our computer screens.  The tech was very helpful, said the problem could be resolved on their end but could take up to 24 hours to fix.  When I asked what the problem was, she said my cable modem was in a feedback loop and was being "gardenwalled".  At first I thought I'd misheard her, that maybe she'd said something about our firewall.  But when she used the term again, I knew I wasn't hearing things.

Since I didn't have Internet access so I could do a search on the term, I asked a couple of my tech buddies if they'd ever heard of it.  They hadn't.  One politely suggested that maybe my support person was having a good time at my expense ("Hey, do you believe that?  I used this made-up term and the guy actually thought it was real!").  Yeah, I felt pretty intelligent after THAT conversation.

This afternoon I finally regained my Internet access and started my search.  It took awhile, but eventually I found the term, defined in a document by IBM, no less.  Turns out that "walled gardens" are proprietary software programs that allow users to communicate with each other through the use of audio and video and, in particular, instant messaging (or IM).  Folks within the user community can do what they need to just fine; it's when they try to communicate outside their community that they find they're locked out.  So "gardenwalling" means that a user with, for example, AIM, is "locked out" of the Yahoo Instant Messenger community because the two programs were designed not to work together.

By the way, for those of you who keep up on such things, a new standard called SIP (for "Session Initiation Protocol") is being adapted by a growing number of organizations.  The standard would mean that programs designed in conjuction with the SIP protocol would be able to communicate with each other, regardless of which vendor developed the program.  This interoperability would not be limited to simply IM applications.  Other types of audio and video communication, such as multimedia conferencing, wireless communcation, and telephony, will be accessible.

SIP is catching on with vendors and businesses.  All indications are it'll be the new standard in communications, much as TCP/IP and HTTP are in networking and Web development...whoops.  Excuse me.  I'm slipping into "tech mode"...sorry....  While gardenwalling is a good way to help vendors lock out their competition, it also locks in its user base.  You can't chat with your friends unless they're using the same program you are.

In a few years (or maybe even sooner) gardenwalling won't exist.  Maybe that's why I'd never heard of the term before - it's so new that by the time it catches on, it's already useless.  At least now I know what it means, and so do you.  Want to impress your friends?  The next time somebody complains that he can't IM you because you don't use the same software he does, just smile knowingly and say, "Well, that's what happens when you get gardenwalled."   That ought to increase your "geek factor" a few points.