kurt

Morning Patholog Perambulation

Social networking and community building possibilities for Patholog:

1. Familiar Strangers

Something the Naimark was talking about yesterday... provacative and controversial yet very interesting. An interface for visualizing repeated contact at a certain proximity with strangers, those that are not members of your group community or "buddy list". This feature would not be available in real time to preserve the anonymity/privacy of strangers. Seems like it would be valuable to require an "opt in" method for this functionality.

2. Social State and Awareness

The model of instant messaging chat clients should be explored for community relations. Beyond an on/off function, the ability to set states that reflect the type of social interactions that the user wants to participate in is extremely important. A type of explicit receptivity could be set to something as detailed as "having lunch with friends, come join me if you're in the area" which would open your visibility within the system and alert your friends who have the same (or similar) setting.

3. Surveillance Mode (or Parent Mode or Stalker Mode)

Real time data. Boundaries that set off alarm. Listing of nearby friends.

4. Send me an angel

In a trouble situation, something less than a 911 emergency, an active beacon that alerts your friends that you need a some help. It allows you to transmit your present location in real time to your friend's device so that they will have compass heading information to find you.

5. Voyeur/Exhibitionist

This seems natural to me as both a privacy concern and an expressive capability... don't quite know what this will look like yet.

6. Traffic

Just a mark up of all the data from the servers. Find interesting ways to observe foot traffic in crowded metropolitan areas. A possible source of funding would be to package this data and sell it to marketers... I shudder at the thought but it is a reality.