This website came about because we wanted to bring some context to the question of context.

Who are “we”? Well, I’m Matt Thompson, proprietor of Newsless.org, where I’ve been making the case for context since August 2008. I came up with the idea for this site during a series of conversations with Jay Rosen, Tristan Harris and Staci Kramer, the co-panelists for a March 2010 SXSW event.

I’ve organized the site the same way we organized the panel, with three main areas of focus:

I. Arguments for context – Why is attending to the matter of context online so important?

II. Things that are broken – Where is attention to context needed most? What are some of the biggest difficulties in presenting context on the Web?

III. Ideas - How might we begin to fix some of those things that are broken?

I have no intention of treating this site like another blog; I already have enough of those. I want this to be a guidebook, a place where you can go to dig into the state of the context problem, explore current approaches, and discover and propose ideas.

I also don’t want this to be my guidebook; I’d like it to be ours. Yours, that is, as well as mine, and that of anyone else who’s got some arguments, some complaints, or some ideas. Feel free to contribute, whether in the comments of any post, or by using the form at right to submit an argument, problem, or idea of your own.