[irq]: techie interrupted

“ Last but not least, we can use the object-centered sociality theory to identify new objects that are potentially suitable for social networking services. Take the notion of place, for example. Annotating places is a new practice for which there is clearly a need, but for which there is no successful service at the moment because the technology for capturing one’s location is not quite yet cheap enough, reliable enough, and easy enough to use. In other words, to get a ‘Flickr for maps‘ we first need a ‘digital camera for location.’ „

Tonight I stumbled on Jyri Zengestrom’s essay on “object-centered sociality” from 2005 in which he argues that sustainable networks must be built around objects (e.g. photos - Flickr; links - delicious; events - EVDB, Upcoming.org, evnt) rather than people.

He then points out there’s not successful network around places, even though people like to talk about places, because we don’t have “a digital camera for location” - basically an easy way to capture location.

Remember this was written in 2005. Since then: 

• Digital camera for location = mobile phone
• Successful service to annotate places = Foursquare

Wow.

(via cacioppo)

—

And with that, I finally get foursquare—it makes places into social objects.

That’s a nice soundbite, but the rest of it: places have always been social abstractions, codified as objects in books, maps, vacation photos, etc. Those old objects have for the most part just been grafted onto the web without anyone developing a new object. The location-based social apps made check-ins the social place-object. Interesting.

-Aneel.

(via cacioppo)