As the old year is almost over, I have a tradition of recalling my favourite blog posts from the preceding year.
Here are my favourite posts from the past year. The provide a snapshot of my evolving interests in online topics and my personal past-times.
January
Chicago Is My Kind of Town
To celebrate a milestone birthday of mine, my wife took me on a trip to Chicago. I was greatly impressed by the city's cool use of digital media.
February
Pondering Effects of Foursquare
After eagerly adopting (and blogging about) the geosocial location-based mobile service, Foursquare I cooled off to its use. I've resumed using it in late 2011 as it is has become the prime LBS and perhaps only one to hit critical mass. This post recounts how I uses it and my hopes for it to offer richer experiences.
March
IPTV - TV over the Internet with Bell Fibe
After years of using rabbit ears, I got my family cable TV for Christmas last year. I got Bell's new Fibe service, which is delivered over the Internet. The blog post details some of its pros and cons. But recently Bell Fibe launched some great new apps, including Facebook and Twitter - so I'm liking it even more now.
April
Types of Geotargetted Information
My doctoral research this year has been laying down ground work on on central concepts for location-based services. This posts looks into the nature of various forms of geotargetted information.
May
Elegy for Yahoo
When I first started using the Internet - first email, calendars and web searching, then photo sharing, blogging, and folksonomies it was all via Yahoo. But when Yahoo "updated" their services and didn't support syncing with my BlackBerry I sadly had to quit using them. I believe my experience is indicative of Yahoo's overall fate.
June
TEDx LibrariansTO - An Idea Worth Spreading
I'm not a fan of the elitism of TED conferences, but I think their format for presentations is highly effective. This posts recaps what I found particularly effective about the TED format, as I experienced at a TEDx event.
July
A good month so I have two favourites:
McLuhan Centenary
2011 was the hundredth anniversary of Toronto's media visionary Marshall McLuhan. His program is now housed at the Faculty of Information (iSchool) at the University of Toronto (where I'm studying). There were lots of events to mark his centennary and this posts highlights some of McLuhan's bon mots on media.
Good Things Grow in Ontario
Foodland Ontario ran one of the most fun and effective social media campaigns that I've heard of (and I don't just say that as my kid entered).
August and September
- No posts; on vacation to Alaska and Whistler and then back to iSchool.
October
Locative Media Innovation Day
Location based services and locative media are the subject of my doctoral research, so I was really excited to attend a local conference on the subject on Toronto's new premier conference venue, TIFF.
November
Blogging is History
iSchool often has great speakers. This blog post captured a public lecture on archiving considerations for bloggers. I was surprised by how many important considerations I - and I'm sure many other bloggers - was missing.
December
The Top 15 Canadians in Digital Media
I particularly like this post on an article I wrote for Backbone Magazine for a few reasons. For one, I I think it is important to honour Canadians making significant contributions to the digital media sphere, and I think this article highlights 15 incredible Canadians. But also, this article began as a blog post I wrote for Canada Day in 2008. It's great to see something that started here evolve into something more prominent.
2011 also saw the loss of my mentor and digital pioneer, Liz Metcalfe. Canada's online scene is not the same without her and we greatly miss her.
I blogged more in 2011 than I have in years. But I missed a post for September 29th of 2011 which was the five year anniversary of Webslinger. What began as an experiment in blogging - and despite occasional neglect and even considerations of abandonment - has become a vital part of my academic and personal life.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Top 15 Canadians in Digital Media
A blog post that I started a couple years ago in honour of Canada Day to track notable Canadians working in digital media has continued to grow over the years. Backbone Magazine asked me to write an article on this, so I selected 15 Canadians whose contributions to digital media was particularly outstanding.
The article, The Top 15 Canadians in digital media, is the November/December cover story for the print edition of Backbone Magazine. But the article is also available online on Backbone's website (along with other of my blog posts).
The editor of the magazine also started a discussion on LinkedIn to hear from other people on who else should be added to the list. I'd love to keep this list going - encompassing more people and a broader spectrum of industries and roles.
So please offer any suggestions you can think of either on the LinkedIn group or here.
The article, The Top 15 Canadians in digital media, is the November/December cover story for the print edition of Backbone Magazine. But the article is also available online on Backbone's website (along with other of my blog posts).
The editor of the magazine also started a discussion on LinkedIn to hear from other people on who else should be added to the list. I'd love to keep this list going - encompassing more people and a broader spectrum of industries and roles.
So please offer any suggestions you can think of either on the LinkedIn group or here.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Practitioner barriers to diffusion and implementation of web accessibility
My research on the adoption challenges of web accessibility that I conducted during my master's research has been published this month in an academic journal. The article Practitioner barriers to diffusion and implementation of web accessibility is published in the journal "Technology and Disability" (Volume 23, Number 4).
The paper looked at how as people are increasingly integrating online activities into their daily lives, disabled people are often impeded from accessing websites due to code and design barriers. Despite guidelines on how to improve web accessibility that have been around since the early days of the Web, accessibility adoption remains low. The responsibility to implement web accessibility tends to fall on web practitioners, yet prior scholarship has failed to adequately consult this group on their barriers to adoption.
I conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with web practitioners from various sectors, locations, and job duties. I found that current social and individual values, inadequate guidelines and support, and monetary demands are halting the diffusion of web accessibility. These factors perpetuate an artificial construct of online disability and impede developments towards an inclusive Web medium.
The paper offered a model and recommendations to remediate this environment and thus improve accessibility rates. I have previously posted my recommendations on this blog, but my model has been updated and I will include it here.
Thanks to everyone who helped out with this research either as participants or as reviewers!
The paper looked at how as people are increasingly integrating online activities into their daily lives, disabled people are often impeded from accessing websites due to code and design barriers. Despite guidelines on how to improve web accessibility that have been around since the early days of the Web, accessibility adoption remains low. The responsibility to implement web accessibility tends to fall on web practitioners, yet prior scholarship has failed to adequately consult this group on their barriers to adoption.
I conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with web practitioners from various sectors, locations, and job duties. I found that current social and individual values, inadequate guidelines and support, and monetary demands are halting the diffusion of web accessibility. These factors perpetuate an artificial construct of online disability and impede developments towards an inclusive Web medium.
The paper offered a model and recommendations to remediate this environment and thus improve accessibility rates. I have previously posted my recommendations on this blog, but my model has been updated and I will include it here.
Thanks to everyone who helped out with this research either as participants or as reviewers!
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Answer My Survey on Sense of Place & Location Based Services
Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring how location-based services and geotargetted information affect our relationship to the places we encounter. More people are using these mobile applications, including Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Places, SCVNGR, Layar, and a seeming endless array of apps to help us locate and learn more about everything from where we parked our car to the nearest restaurant.
Despite the growing popularity of location-based services, they still have not been well studied. My PhD work is examining the interplay of people, mobile applications, and space. One of my first steps is to uncover how sense of place is formulated and how location-based surveys may affect this.
As such, I’m conducting a survey on location-based services (LBS) and sense of place. I think it is important to hear from mobile device users to understand how their usage of LBS might influence sense of place. This research will be used for coursework for my PhD studies at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.
I will be posting a summary of the findings here on the blog so that we can all better understand this growing technological trend.
Update December 20, 2011: The survey is now closed, but if you have thoughts on how location based services affect your sense of a place, please share them below.
Despite the growing popularity of location-based services, they still have not been well studied. My PhD work is examining the interplay of people, mobile applications, and space. One of my first steps is to uncover how sense of place is formulated and how location-based surveys may affect this.
As such, I’m conducting a survey on location-based services (LBS) and sense of place. I think it is important to hear from mobile device users to understand how their usage of LBS might influence sense of place. This research will be used for coursework for my PhD studies at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.
I will be posting a summary of the findings here on the blog so that we can all better understand this growing technological trend.
Update December 20, 2011: The survey is now closed, but if you have thoughts on how location based services affect your sense of a place, please share them below.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Blogging is History
Earlier this week, I was at a public lecture given by Carolyn Hank, an information professor at McGill University, on archiving considerations for blogs. Archiving isn't a topic that stirs many people's interest (no offense to my archivist friends), let alone those in the notoriously now-oriented world of digital media.
But upon hearing Hank speak, I realized there are preservation and copyright issues that apply to all bloggers (not those, however, who blog about what they just ate or the club they're at).
Here are useful considerations for all bloggers:
1) Does your blog have historical value?
Probably. But many bloggers prune or delete without thinking that there could be historic value to their posts. I admit, I delete as I please without any thought to any greater implications. As blogs are one of the main discursive forms of our era, they are definitely worth preserving.
Also studies, and certainly my blog's stats, show that there is tremendous value in the long tail of blogs, so it is worthwhile to keep old posts around.
2) Who owns the copyright for your blog?
This may seem a rather basic issue. But there are factors that can make things more complicated. This can particularly become an issue if you decide to publish your blog in some other format (e.g. as a book) or port to another provider.
If you use a hosted solution, you probably won't own the technology of the blog. As for the content, it's not a bad idea to check the terms of use with your service provider or any blog network or syndicators you may belong to.
Comments are a thorny issue as it doesn't seem there are clear laws or norms on who owns them. I tend to see blog comments as similar to callers of a radio show, audience members on a tv talk show, or someone interviewed by the media. Once you say it to them, you don't own it anymore. So I am not clear why bloggers wouldn't own their audience's comments?
I believe that commenters do not have the right to edit or retract without the blogger's permission. Of course, this wouldn't apply to comments that are libellous, against a terms of use, or otherwise morally problematic. Either way (and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this), a blog should have a policy on this and should be clearly articulate to users.
3) Do you clearly state your ownership of your blog and its components?
Hank found that many blogs don't have any statement as to copyright of the blog or the rights of commenters. Considering how easy and free Creative Commons makes it to declare copyright and usage permissions, I was surprised that some bloggers don't have any sort of statement about this. I recently updated my Creative Commons licence after Hank's presentation. Clearly, I also need to state something about my commenting policy.
4) Is your blog already archived?
Hank pointed out that there are organizations already archiving blogs such as Internet Archive and others. I never thought of this, but I assumed this blog would not be archived. I checked with Internet Archive and a portion of it is. I never directed it to crawl my site, so this was a surprise.
This is important for bloggers to think about. I have posted items that I later regretted and wanted to edit or delete (and I did). But if your blog is archived without your awareness, one can loose control of what lingers around. It is, however, great to have my blog preserved with no effort on my part, but as a result I have lost a bit of control. Internet Archives does offer instructions on how to add or remove your blog.
5) How does one archive a blog?
It's not as easy it seems. It's not simply a case of just backing-up past posts. First, if one is using a hosted solution, there could be technical or commercial limits to what can be saved - so one may be able to archive the text of the blog posts but not the wrapper or other elements.
6) What are the elements of a blog that should be archived?
Considering the dyanmic, contextual, and hyperlinked nature of blogs, it's impossible to perserve all the dimensions of a blog. So what are the essential elements that should be archived?
Certainly the main post is essential, but what about comments (and back to the issue of who owns these), the profile links, embedded content, hyperlinked context, and sidebar elements? Once one has determined the essential elements the next issue is how to technically preserve all this.
7) Whose responsibility is it to archive blogs?
It seems rather safe to me to say that some blogs should definitely be archived. It also seems safe to say that most bloggers and blog owners operate in the moment and often haven't considered this issue.
Should blog archiving fall to individual bloggers or is this something that should be handled by a government, academic, or non-profit organization?
Although the concerns addressed above are applicable to most bloggers, the latter issue concerns everyone. Blogs are history. And we should protect our history.
But upon hearing Hank speak, I realized there are preservation and copyright issues that apply to all bloggers (not those, however, who blog about what they just ate or the club they're at).
Here are useful considerations for all bloggers:
1) Does your blog have historical value?
Probably. But many bloggers prune or delete without thinking that there could be historic value to their posts. I admit, I delete as I please without any thought to any greater implications. As blogs are one of the main discursive forms of our era, they are definitely worth preserving.
Also studies, and certainly my blog's stats, show that there is tremendous value in the long tail of blogs, so it is worthwhile to keep old posts around.
2) Who owns the copyright for your blog?
This may seem a rather basic issue. But there are factors that can make things more complicated. This can particularly become an issue if you decide to publish your blog in some other format (e.g. as a book) or port to another provider.
If you use a hosted solution, you probably won't own the technology of the blog. As for the content, it's not a bad idea to check the terms of use with your service provider or any blog network or syndicators you may belong to.
Comments are a thorny issue as it doesn't seem there are clear laws or norms on who owns them. I tend to see blog comments as similar to callers of a radio show, audience members on a tv talk show, or someone interviewed by the media. Once you say it to them, you don't own it anymore. So I am not clear why bloggers wouldn't own their audience's comments?
I believe that commenters do not have the right to edit or retract without the blogger's permission. Of course, this wouldn't apply to comments that are libellous, against a terms of use, or otherwise morally problematic. Either way (and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this), a blog should have a policy on this and should be clearly articulate to users.
3) Do you clearly state your ownership of your blog and its components?
Hank found that many blogs don't have any statement as to copyright of the blog or the rights of commenters. Considering how easy and free Creative Commons makes it to declare copyright and usage permissions, I was surprised that some bloggers don't have any sort of statement about this. I recently updated my Creative Commons licence after Hank's presentation. Clearly, I also need to state something about my commenting policy.
4) Is your blog already archived?
Hank pointed out that there are organizations already archiving blogs such as Internet Archive and others. I never thought of this, but I assumed this blog would not be archived. I checked with Internet Archive and a portion of it is. I never directed it to crawl my site, so this was a surprise.
This is important for bloggers to think about. I have posted items that I later regretted and wanted to edit or delete (and I did). But if your blog is archived without your awareness, one can loose control of what lingers around. It is, however, great to have my blog preserved with no effort on my part, but as a result I have lost a bit of control. Internet Archives does offer instructions on how to add or remove your blog.
5) How does one archive a blog?
It's not as easy it seems. It's not simply a case of just backing-up past posts. First, if one is using a hosted solution, there could be technical or commercial limits to what can be saved - so one may be able to archive the text of the blog posts but not the wrapper or other elements.
6) What are the elements of a blog that should be archived?
Considering the dyanmic, contextual, and hyperlinked nature of blogs, it's impossible to perserve all the dimensions of a blog. So what are the essential elements that should be archived?
Certainly the main post is essential, but what about comments (and back to the issue of who owns these), the profile links, embedded content, hyperlinked context, and sidebar elements? Once one has determined the essential elements the next issue is how to technically preserve all this.
7) Whose responsibility is it to archive blogs?
It seems rather safe to me to say that some blogs should definitely be archived. It also seems safe to say that most bloggers and blog owners operate in the moment and often haven't considered this issue.
Should blog archiving fall to individual bloggers or is this something that should be handled by a government, academic, or non-profit organization?
Although the concerns addressed above are applicable to most bloggers, the latter issue concerns everyone. Blogs are history. And we should protect our history.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Locative Media Definition
I recently attended a conference on locative media and the definition of locative media offered, and one that is often assumed, is that locative media are mediums that address a physical space through digital technology.
It is safe to assume there is consensus that locative media, should be media that address the location issue. But I find the digital assumption to be problematic. It may be useful for writers and pundits to use the term to distinguish it as a trend or as emerging technology, as per the use of term social media.
I think digital is not a defining traits so much as the ability to (easily) access a medium's content while in the referenced space.
Films, for example, would not generally be locative if viewed on a screen or television. So Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the cave paintings in southern France are not locative. But it could be, if it was viewed on a mobile device or laptop while at the cave (or the cave authorities have a screening room at their interpretation centre). It's more feasible to consider a scenario of watching a clip of Woody Allen's Manhattan on a tablet while sitting in Central Park.
Access to the medium is definitely a defining trait too. Books about a place are not often easily accessible while at a given location unless one has planned ahead and brought the book along (as happens with travel guides). But this access barrier is breaking down with the growing popularity of e-books (although the form of the medium, i.e. its length, makes it less suitable for place-based consumption).
So if many media have locative aspects, perhaps the term locative media is meant for media that are exclusively locative, that is primarily consumed while at a location? This would be the case for interactive kiosks that malls and museums often use for wayfinding and other place-related information. Digital media don't have a monopoly on locative however, as plaques and print guestbooks, for examples, are non-digital and exclusively locative. The idea of exclusivity is problematic as some media may be mostly used while at a location, for example travel guidebooks or geosocial networking apps, can be also used a lot while in various locations.
I'm thinking that a definition of locative media would then be media that address place and are used while in the place.
I think discussing what the term locative media means is important not just for researchers and scholars in the field, but for developers and content creators. Considering the prior media that have come before and offer their strengths and weaknesses can be invaluable for guiding design and technical decisions.
It is safe to assume there is consensus that locative media, should be media that address the location issue. But I find the digital assumption to be problematic. It may be useful for writers and pundits to use the term to distinguish it as a trend or as emerging technology, as per the use of term social media.
I think digital is not a defining traits so much as the ability to (easily) access a medium's content while in the referenced space.
Films, for example, would not generally be locative if viewed on a screen or television. So Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the cave paintings in southern France are not locative. But it could be, if it was viewed on a mobile device or laptop while at the cave (or the cave authorities have a screening room at their interpretation centre). It's more feasible to consider a scenario of watching a clip of Woody Allen's Manhattan on a tablet while sitting in Central Park.
Access to the medium is definitely a defining trait too. Books about a place are not often easily accessible while at a given location unless one has planned ahead and brought the book along (as happens with travel guides). But this access barrier is breaking down with the growing popularity of e-books (although the form of the medium, i.e. its length, makes it less suitable for place-based consumption).
So if many media have locative aspects, perhaps the term locative media is meant for media that are exclusively locative, that is primarily consumed while at a location? This would be the case for interactive kiosks that malls and museums often use for wayfinding and other place-related information. Digital media don't have a monopoly on locative however, as plaques and print guestbooks, for examples, are non-digital and exclusively locative. The idea of exclusivity is problematic as some media may be mostly used while at a location, for example travel guidebooks or geosocial networking apps, can be also used a lot while in various locations.
I'm thinking that a definition of locative media would then be media that address place and are used while in the place.
I think discussing what the term locative media means is important not just for researchers and scholars in the field, but for developers and content creators. Considering the prior media that have come before and offer their strengths and weaknesses can be invaluable for guiding design and technical decisions.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Locative Media Innovation Day
Bill Buxton opened a half-day conference on locative media this past Friday at Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) new building, by noting that it is not just realtors anymore asserting the importance of location, location, location.
Considering the importance of location and my propensity to begin conference recaps by discussing the event location, I would like to say that TIFF is the best conference venue in Toronto. It was my first time attending an event at TIFF's headquarters in downtown Toronto (although I did attend their Tim Burton exhibition and blogged about their use of QR codes). Their building, the Bell Lightbox, is located on the spot I used as a shortcut to my first ever Internet job. Formerly a lacklustre parking lot, it is now a centre of cinematic and new media culture.
Unlike other conference venues, TIFF's seats are comfortable and the leg room is fine. I find it hard (and boring) to sit still and silently for hours and listen to people talk at me, but it's even more difficult when the seats cause excruciating pain. The event was filled to capacity, which made it a bit stuffy and hot - but it was worth it to see so many people interested in locative media.
The conference is a joint event between TIFF Nexus series on new media and Toronto's Digifest, a week long conference and celebration of digital innovation. Considering this broad mandate, there were a few speakers that strayed from the locative media focus, but the innovations presented were incredible so I didn't mind. Attendees represented a good mix of developers, artists, producers, educators, students, researchers, and vendors. This mix is so much more rewarding than most other conferences attempt to assemble.
Bill Buxton a principal researcher at Microsoft opened the event by noting that intelligence of technology lies not so much in the innovation itself but in its context. "I don't care about technology" he stated, "it a utilitarian thing that can be easily discarded". The important consideration is the fundamental human behaviour or need that technology enables. He cited an automatic door opener as being a prime example of intelligent technology - not because it is technically sophisticated (it isn't) but because of its "embedded intelligence". Its intelligence comes from where it is and how well it fits into the ecology of the physical system. As such, locative media creators should not get wrapped up on new abilities of a technology, but rather consider the different dimensions of human behaviour. For one, closeless is not necessarily physical proximity, Buxton noted. There are different types of closelessness such as proximity but also emotional, cultural, and relational bonds, as well as intermediaries or physical impediments that all affects closeness. So assuming that physical proximity is the lead or only factor for locative media may lead to technology that doesn't serve the needs of users.
The next speaker, Richard Lachman of Ryerson University, offerred some foundational concepts of locative media. As the term locative media is used rather nebulously, Lachman offers a definition that locative media is "annotating physical space with digital content". To Lachman, technology such as augmented reality, location based services, and QR codes are examples of locative media. I can see the importance of having consistency in terminology, but I wonder if the content being digital is a fundamental criteria. As I have blogged about before, there are many types of technology or media that annotate physical space, from plaques and posters to graffiti and flags. There are commonalities between these older media and digital media. I don't like to extend a term to the point of meaningless and Lachman's digital focus is consistent with contemporary usage, but I think this exclusive digital focus makes it easy for creators to forget the lessons learned from earlier efforts and to not adequately consider how a new technology is offering something new or improved.
Lachman continued to explain other fundamental qualities of locative media by offering examples of current innovations. Proximity can be personally useful in some imaginative ways, he demonstrated by showcasing iNap, an application to wake up sleepy commuters when they pass a predesignated zone so they won't miss their stop. Discovery Channel's SharkRunner is particularly interesting in how it combines game play with the real-world by having users interact with real GPS-tagged sharks. Citing the case of Nicaragua invading Costa Rica based on faulty Google Maps data, Lachman also cautioned about the need for applications to preserve our trust. Accuracy is not the only element of trust that is essential, as privacy concerns of locative media can also be disconcerting as the new technology is in wide use "before we had time to adapt our social practices or norms". Lachman described how locative media can not only offer push content (content that pops out at you based on your location) or pull content (geolocated data that one selects to receive) but can be an interface to our world. To do this we need to consider awareness, expectations, user experience, values, and design.
The creator of murmur, one of the world's first digital locative media projects, Shawn Micallef spoke next about why he feels locative media has something special to offer. Upon moving to a new city (in his case Toronto), he realized that his "mental map of the city had a lot of dark spots". He wanted to uncover these "mental hinterlands" and found that exploring the city as earlier psychogeographers had done enabled him to form relations to his new spaces. He also began tweeting while he explored the city and received tweets back within moments that offered personal experiences or histories of his location that enriched Micallef's understanding of the place. His project murmur is now in 25-30 cities and will be soon relaunching with GPS ability. Micallef cautions that current locative media applications such as Foursquare really need to examine the value of place. To Micallef, Foursquare is mostly spam as he doesn't care where someone is but it is people's more thoughtful and unique relations to place that are interesting.
After speaking, Micallef introduced a series of locative media creators describing their projects. Incredible projects were presented such as Ghostbusters, a location-based game; Sauga 2030, a futuristic tour of Mississauga, Ontario; Sousveiller, participatory surveillance identification; This Dark Encounter, a marketing effort using real world, bookstore interaction to promote a new book; and Rocket Radar, proximal public transit schedule updates.
Adam Schwabe of Rocket Radar effectively summed up the role locative media projects must play to offer the "right information, at the right time, in the right way". Schwabe, however, doesn't believe in users setting up preferences or customization, he believes that is a lazy solution for developers. Instead, he believe it is paramount to build a system that should know about the user and get it right the first time.
I mentioned earlier that I loved the location of this conference, the other great thing about TIFF is they computer labs on site so they were able to offer a round of hands-on workshops. I also mentioned that I find it boring to sit and be spoken to for hours on end, so these workshops were a welcome technique.
I attended a session allowing me to create my own augmented reality work through SnapDragonAR. The software was created by York University's Future Cinema Labs and now spun off as a private company, Future Stories. I was blown away with the software as within moments I was able to make a really cool augmented reality application that responded both visually and aurally to a user's location in space. Fisher describes her reasoning behind developing the software as she's not concerned with "what technology makes possible, but what it makes easy". The software is a great tool for prototyping and experimenting with augmented reality. But Fisher envisions it being extended to further facilitate it integrating with location-aware technologies to offer geotargetted augmented reality. She did caution that this technology needs to improve as users are not necessarily interested in holding a device up to a precise spot or going out into traffic to get content. Fisher encourages people to focus on "spatial storytelling" and to do this effectively she suggests creator think about: structure, grammar, poetics, interactivity, interface, narrative, immersion, presence, and proprioception.
The following sessions of the conference introduced developers in TIFF Nexus Peripherals Initiative creative jam project that provided funding for game developers to experiment with game play and the physical world. Although all the presented games were amazing, they mostly focused on new types of physical controls and as such weren't up my alley.
As one who studies locative media, I was excited to see my hometown clueing in to this growing area and displaying some impressive local thought and innovation. Shawn Micallef, the grandparent of locative media via his murmur project, summed up this remarkable change with his conference tweet: "When we started [murmur] in 2003, I don't believe the word 'Locative Media' existed -- now there are #TIFFNexus conferences on it. Fun."
Considering the importance of location and my propensity to begin conference recaps by discussing the event location, I would like to say that TIFF is the best conference venue in Toronto. It was my first time attending an event at TIFF's headquarters in downtown Toronto (although I did attend their Tim Burton exhibition and blogged about their use of QR codes). Their building, the Bell Lightbox, is located on the spot I used as a shortcut to my first ever Internet job. Formerly a lacklustre parking lot, it is now a centre of cinematic and new media culture.
Unlike other conference venues, TIFF's seats are comfortable and the leg room is fine. I find it hard (and boring) to sit still and silently for hours and listen to people talk at me, but it's even more difficult when the seats cause excruciating pain. The event was filled to capacity, which made it a bit stuffy and hot - but it was worth it to see so many people interested in locative media.
The conference is a joint event between TIFF Nexus series on new media and Toronto's Digifest, a week long conference and celebration of digital innovation. Considering this broad mandate, there were a few speakers that strayed from the locative media focus, but the innovations presented were incredible so I didn't mind. Attendees represented a good mix of developers, artists, producers, educators, students, researchers, and vendors. This mix is so much more rewarding than most other conferences attempt to assemble.
Bill Buxton a principal researcher at Microsoft opened the event by noting that intelligence of technology lies not so much in the innovation itself but in its context. "I don't care about technology" he stated, "it a utilitarian thing that can be easily discarded". The important consideration is the fundamental human behaviour or need that technology enables. He cited an automatic door opener as being a prime example of intelligent technology - not because it is technically sophisticated (it isn't) but because of its "embedded intelligence". Its intelligence comes from where it is and how well it fits into the ecology of the physical system. As such, locative media creators should not get wrapped up on new abilities of a technology, but rather consider the different dimensions of human behaviour. For one, closeless is not necessarily physical proximity, Buxton noted. There are different types of closelessness such as proximity but also emotional, cultural, and relational bonds, as well as intermediaries or physical impediments that all affects closeness. So assuming that physical proximity is the lead or only factor for locative media may lead to technology that doesn't serve the needs of users.
The next speaker, Richard Lachman of Ryerson University, offerred some foundational concepts of locative media. As the term locative media is used rather nebulously, Lachman offers a definition that locative media is "annotating physical space with digital content". To Lachman, technology such as augmented reality, location based services, and QR codes are examples of locative media. I can see the importance of having consistency in terminology, but I wonder if the content being digital is a fundamental criteria. As I have blogged about before, there are many types of technology or media that annotate physical space, from plaques and posters to graffiti and flags. There are commonalities between these older media and digital media. I don't like to extend a term to the point of meaningless and Lachman's digital focus is consistent with contemporary usage, but I think this exclusive digital focus makes it easy for creators to forget the lessons learned from earlier efforts and to not adequately consider how a new technology is offering something new or improved.
Lachman continued to explain other fundamental qualities of locative media by offering examples of current innovations. Proximity can be personally useful in some imaginative ways, he demonstrated by showcasing iNap, an application to wake up sleepy commuters when they pass a predesignated zone so they won't miss their stop. Discovery Channel's SharkRunner is particularly interesting in how it combines game play with the real-world by having users interact with real GPS-tagged sharks. Citing the case of Nicaragua invading Costa Rica based on faulty Google Maps data, Lachman also cautioned about the need for applications to preserve our trust. Accuracy is not the only element of trust that is essential, as privacy concerns of locative media can also be disconcerting as the new technology is in wide use "before we had time to adapt our social practices or norms". Lachman described how locative media can not only offer push content (content that pops out at you based on your location) or pull content (geolocated data that one selects to receive) but can be an interface to our world. To do this we need to consider awareness, expectations, user experience, values, and design.
The creator of murmur, one of the world's first digital locative media projects, Shawn Micallef spoke next about why he feels locative media has something special to offer. Upon moving to a new city (in his case Toronto), he realized that his "mental map of the city had a lot of dark spots". He wanted to uncover these "mental hinterlands" and found that exploring the city as earlier psychogeographers had done enabled him to form relations to his new spaces. He also began tweeting while he explored the city and received tweets back within moments that offered personal experiences or histories of his location that enriched Micallef's understanding of the place. His project murmur is now in 25-30 cities and will be soon relaunching with GPS ability. Micallef cautions that current locative media applications such as Foursquare really need to examine the value of place. To Micallef, Foursquare is mostly spam as he doesn't care where someone is but it is people's more thoughtful and unique relations to place that are interesting.
After speaking, Micallef introduced a series of locative media creators describing their projects. Incredible projects were presented such as Ghostbusters, a location-based game; Sauga 2030, a futuristic tour of Mississauga, Ontario; Sousveiller, participatory surveillance identification; This Dark Encounter, a marketing effort using real world, bookstore interaction to promote a new book; and Rocket Radar, proximal public transit schedule updates.
Adam Schwabe of Rocket Radar effectively summed up the role locative media projects must play to offer the "right information, at the right time, in the right way". Schwabe, however, doesn't believe in users setting up preferences or customization, he believes that is a lazy solution for developers. Instead, he believe it is paramount to build a system that should know about the user and get it right the first time.
I mentioned earlier that I loved the location of this conference, the other great thing about TIFF is they computer labs on site so they were able to offer a round of hands-on workshops. I also mentioned that I find it boring to sit and be spoken to for hours on end, so these workshops were a welcome technique.
I attended a session allowing me to create my own augmented reality work through SnapDragonAR. The software was created by York University's Future Cinema Labs and now spun off as a private company, Future Stories. I was blown away with the software as within moments I was able to make a really cool augmented reality application that responded both visually and aurally to a user's location in space. Fisher describes her reasoning behind developing the software as she's not concerned with "what technology makes possible, but what it makes easy". The software is a great tool for prototyping and experimenting with augmented reality. But Fisher envisions it being extended to further facilitate it integrating with location-aware technologies to offer geotargetted augmented reality. She did caution that this technology needs to improve as users are not necessarily interested in holding a device up to a precise spot or going out into traffic to get content. Fisher encourages people to focus on "spatial storytelling" and to do this effectively she suggests creator think about: structure, grammar, poetics, interactivity, interface, narrative, immersion, presence, and proprioception.
The following sessions of the conference introduced developers in TIFF Nexus Peripherals Initiative creative jam project that provided funding for game developers to experiment with game play and the physical world. Although all the presented games were amazing, they mostly focused on new types of physical controls and as such weren't up my alley.
As one who studies locative media, I was excited to see my hometown clueing in to this growing area and displaying some impressive local thought and innovation. Shawn Micallef, the grandparent of locative media via his murmur project, summed up this remarkable change with his conference tweet: "When we started [murmur] in 2003, I don't believe the word 'Locative Media' existed -- now there are #TIFFNexus conferences on it. Fun."
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