Semi-Real Time? Presence Peaking?

Erick and I were talking the other day about the essence of what this “mobile connectedness” is all about… and our ideas about allowing people to stay “connected” more easily. It seems that the interaction is somewhere in between something that is real-time and something that is asynchronous. But, yet, really it’s about neither. It’s about allowing someone to touch what you are doing right now. It’s about allowing someone a little peek into your daily life. It’s about presence. It’s about knowing what someone else is up to. It’s why teenagers text each other 50+ times a day.

But, it seems there is not word for it. So I’ve been struggling to capture what this semi-realtime/ presence awareness experience is all about. After meeting John Poisson at Elizabeth Goodman’s going away party, we sat and discussed this a bit more. To my surprise, he got what I was talking about and ironically had thought about it as well. Seems as though, John and I have been thinking about a lot of similar things :)… In Japan, apparently, they use a term which is something like “mind-touching”. I like that better, but somehow I don’t think it entirely still captures the essence of what it’s all about.

So, if you get what Im talking about, and have any ideas of a better language we can use to talk about this idea… please let me know.

presence touching?

Until then, I am going to keep bugging Erick by using Semi-Realtime around him and Presence Peaking in my own mind.

Anita

3 thoughts on “Semi-Real Time? Presence Peaking?

  1. Anonymous

    Completely agree, it’s the not-quite-real-time that is important. Likewise, the I-am-sharing-this-with-you.

    I’m a big fan of away messages, but Flickr is the ultimate for me at the moment. Admittedly, myself and some of my friends don’t pay for our phone bills, so we’re MMSing and emailing like crazy, but we’ll take pictures with our phone and send them right then even if we’re mainly taking pictures with a real camera for later digestion and uploading. When we get pack to a computer, often the photos will have comments, notes or some kind of response. It’s a background aura… blogs can provide this too, as can certain kinds of mailing list and irc channels.

    So, the important point in all of the above is that the whole social group has to use and respond to the chosen method. Pretty much every communication tool can be bent into this form of presence.

    Oh, and John is one of the most greatest fabulousest people…

    Chris.
    http://anti-mega.com

    Reply
  2. anitamobile

    Yeah, I agree Flickr is awesome! I like what you say about background aura… a question: is there a way to make it foreground? Does it make sense to?

    Im not sure every communication tool makes sense to have this exact same thing… similar one, yes. I’m currently thinking about other communication tools and how this differs or is similar. What makes this so unique that you and your friends are doing it like crazy?

    thanks for the thoughts.

    Reply

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