Participate: pervasive computing

Current use of pervasive technologies participate online report

What participation

• Participate assumes a ‘host’ organisation e.g.anti war march
• Participation is not emergence there is a conscious intent
• Web 2.0 redefines the sense of what ‘host’ is
• Broadcasters and their audiences have different views on what participation is e.g. voting in big brother is participation from endemol’s pov
• Strengthening the ties of exisiting micro-communities is crucial motivation for the community to engage

Levels of engagement range from participants setting the agenda to only watching/listening

Mass participation is good for:

• Campaign: Bigger support increases chances of success e.g. No10 online petitions
• Experiment: Public participation can provide geographic coverage e.g. Seti
• Community: Network participation maintains existing connections allowing for new ones e.g MySpace
• Entertainment: Mass participation increases unexpectedness and unpredictability e.g . World of Warcraft
• Resource: Large number of contributor can increase quality and decrease cost e.g. Wikipedia

… and some of its weaknesses:

• Quality: Issues of quality in Wikipedia or the rise of amateur video maker in youtube
• Ownership: e.g. CCDB data was bought and available only through licence, makes contributors more sceptical about their involvement
• Privacy and permanence: e.g Private conversations in Web 2.0 become public statements that can be used by employers or other unintended recipients
• Creative futures: How crowd opportunities might affect creative industries

Technology: Pervasive (internet) and/or ubiquitous (mobile)

Location technology

• GPS
• Cell-ID
• 2d datacodes
• Wi-fi triangulations

Barriers:

• Mobile connectivity: different devices use different ways to do it
• Cost to end user: Unlimited data plans are not a norm yet
• Development costs: Different standards on mobile phones, maybe through mobile web browsers and on top of this media rights negotiations
• User experience and user appeal: small screens bad interfaces etc

“Ubiquity doesn’t necessarily mean the same service on all devices”

Participate’s approach

• Use well-established tools
• Hope that some technical front runners will become apparent in the future
• Layer the experience so that is accessibile on lower devices yet allows allows users of the latest kit to do more things

Environment: The physical sciences / the social sciences

Environment in the sense originally proposed by Participate, considers studying the physical world by measuring phenomena like biodiversity, air pollution, electromagnetic radiation and noise levels.

Issues to be considered

• Alarmism and small actions: A sense of urgency in addressing issues such as global warming. A report from IPPR identified the following repertoiresAlarmism (serious but hopeless), small actions (worthy but dull), techno optimism (science will fix everything as soon as it is urgent enough though
• Citizen science: Engaging citizens in science (e.g. Springwatch project). One of the criticisms is that participatory research can easily turn into political activism
• Once this data have been collected what one does with them. In UK most of the high quality data are held by government agencies

Social and personal environment: How people act and interact and how our surroundings influence us

• Navigation systems
• Impact of redevelopment in their locality
• Stimulate interaction between people who wouldn’t otherwise engage

Located media: mediascapes, located stories

Some issues for location based media:

• Environmental factors: traffic, rain, sunshine, noise, users feeling uncomfortable
• Audio: audio is highly evocative
• New experiences: located content introduces distinctive experiences described as “magic moments”
• Unfamiliar: Using mobile devices in unfamiliar ways leading to a barrier for participation

Safety and privacy

• Serendipity vs spam: when there is a lot of media associated with a location
• Unwitting or unwilling participation: not being aware of leaving data, raises issues of trust
• Personal safety: risk of using mobile phones in public space (being mugged, not aware of traffic)