The Solar Magnitude Forum concept is essentially that a given user will be most interested in topics that are either 1. very closely aligned with her interests or 2. unusually important and interesting.

The idea was initially defined within the context of the asynchronous discussion forum, but it could be extended further.

A couple days ago I came across this example from the Forrester site:

(larger screen capture)

Forrester is suggesting that I’d be interested in subscribing to newsletters that they assume as being directly applicable to my interests, and also newsletters that they assume I’d be interested in because they are the most widely read or broadly positioned.

The UI is simple and the app does the (relatively) heavy lifting of determining what the user would find the most interesting. The user is saved from paging through a painfully long list of all available newsletters to pick out the ones that are the most useful.

Seen on slashdot:

What does SAS CEO Dr. Jim Goodnight have in common with 47% of high school dropouts? A belief that school is boring. Marking the 50th anniversary of Sputnik with a call for renewed emphasis on science and technology in America’s schools, Goodnight finds today’s kids ill-served by old-school schooling: ‘Today’s generation of kids is the most technology savvy group that this country has ever produced. They are born with an iPod in one hand and a cell phone in another. They’re text messaging, e-mailing, instant messaging. They’re on MySpace, YouTube & Google. They’ve got Nintendo Wiis, Game Boys, PlayStations. Their world is one of total interactivity. They’re in constant communication with each other, but when they go to school, they are told to leave those ‘toys’ at home. They’re not to be used in school. Instead, the system continues teaching as if these kids belong to the last century, by standing in front of a blackboard.’