Making “mobile software” into Mobile Social Software suggests that social beings assume an explicit role in the untethered, software-based experience. If we borrow from the idiom of Social Software, we can say that Mobile Social Software are techniques for articulating social practices that create, maintain and manage networks of relationships amongst people and encourage the circulation of culture in untethered, networked-based usage contexts. The design challenge for such techniques is to avoid prioritizing instrumental aspects of mobile terminal devices over the actual social practice that software attempts to facilitate. I suggest herein that this challenge can be addressed by moving to the foreground specific practice idioms as frameworks for design prototypes, avenues for research and development, and contexts for study and theory objects. This design approach is described as a point of view on Mobile Social Software, along with an explication of this perspective through a taxonomy of Mobile Social Software design idioms
Mobile Social Software describes the creation and maintenance of social formations and the circulation of culture as sustained through the use of mobile communication networks, devices and terminals. The term Mobile Social Software packs together a design tension between the desires of people to be social and the means by which they achieve their sociability. Mobile Social Software is both the means of achieving sociability and the action of energizing one’s social networks. It is both the artifact and the activity. It is a device, such as a cell phone, iPod, laptop, keitei,NintendoDS, Tamogotchi, and the practice engaged, such as playing Nintendog while networked with a friend who is also playing nearby. It is important to underscore the depth of this cohesion between the instrument and the activity. For instance, when we speak of SMS as a kind of Mobile Social Software, we mean both the instrumental short messaging service and the action of SMS’ing, with all of the implications associated with the social interaction of communicating amongst one’s network of friends, colleagues, parents, children and so forth. This is another way of saying that mobile devices are also social devices in the degree to which they
mediate social relationships, social networks and manage the circulation of culture that sustains such networks.
Why is it important to emphasize the two-sidedness of Mobile Social Software?
Because networks of social beings can be shaped by mobile communications devices at the same time that mobile communications devices are shaped by their use and design as instruments to mediate social networks. Appreciating this dialectic makes devices amenable to DIY-style “refactoring” when they are in the hands of users, turning the “end-user” into an important member of the design team. Software becomes social in its action — the practices and uses for which it was designed or for which it becomes employed by those who make use of software. The interplay between technological resources — software, devices, networks — and the articulation of social actions — communicating amongst one’s social network —are what make software “social” and, alternatively, social networks “mobile.” There are valences to the “MoSoSo” meme. It is new and exciting. Also, it is age-old and exciting. Any term such as this whose mnemonic fits so nicely into the argot of the era of the Internet anticipates an ahistorical wave of near-future speculation and “innovation” activity. Mobile Social Software wants to be new. It wants to be different so that its future remains full of promise and not something that has already been done.
What makes it new and exciting? The answer lies in the way Mobile Social Software coheres social practices that arise in mobile, untethered contexts into a category of technical designs that support the creation and maintenance of one’s social networks. The speculation in play is that what worked for the world of tethered, sit-ata- desk social networks — Social Software — may work when you add the “mobile” prefix. This may not always be the case, of course. Mobile usage contexts and scenarios are quite different from those of the tethered usage context, a point sometimes lost in the design of mobile applications.But Mobile Social Software is also age-old in Internet years, and this point is crucial to consider. As new as we want it to be, and as excited as speculators in this new terrain are, it is crucial to think about Mobile Social Software in its precise context. Mobility and the techniques for articulating social practices in untethered usage contexts — this is really what we mean by Mobile Social Software when we are also not just angling for some nibbles from the venture capital community. The mobile phone itself, before it became a computing platform, was the Mobile Social Software artifact par excellence. Voice — and only later — text-based SMS, allows for the kind of social communication that latter day Mobile Social Software strives to accomplish. Voice and text by themselves are often enough to be mobile, sociable and in one’s social loop because such registers of communication are simple in the way they facilitate mobile, untethered linkages amongst people.
Mobile Social Software describes the creation and maintenance of social formations and the circulation of culture as sustained through the use of mobile communication networks, devices and terminals. The term Mobile Social Software packs together a design tension between the desires of people to be social and the means by which they achieve their sociability. Mobile Social Software is both the means of achieving sociability and the action of energizing one’s social networks. It is both the artifact and the activity. It is a device, such as a cell phone, iPod, laptop, keitei,NintendoDS, Tamogotchi, and the practice engaged, such as playing Nintendog while networked with a friend who is also playing nearby. It is important to underscore the depth of this cohesion between the instrument and the activity. For instance, when we speak of SMS as a kind of Mobile Social Software, we mean both the instrumental short messaging service and the action of SMS’ing, with all of the implications associated with the social interaction of communicating amongst one’s network of friends, colleagues, parents, children and so forth. This is another way of saying that mobile devices are also social devices in the degree to which they
mediate social relationships, social networks and manage the circulation of culture that sustains such networks.
Why is it important to emphasize the two-sidedness of Mobile Social Software?
Because networks of social beings can be shaped by mobile communications devices at the same time that mobile communications devices are shaped by their use and design as instruments to mediate social networks. Appreciating this dialectic makes devices amenable to DIY-style “refactoring” when they are in the hands of users, turning the “end-user” into an important member of the design team. Software becomes social in its action — the practices and uses for which it was designed or for which it becomes employed by those who make use of software. The interplay between technological resources — software, devices, networks — and the articulation of social actions — communicating amongst one’s social network —are what make software “social” and, alternatively, social networks “mobile.” There are valences to the “MoSoSo” meme. It is new and exciting. Also, it is age-old and exciting. Any term such as this whose mnemonic fits so nicely into the argot of the era of the Internet anticipates an ahistorical wave of near-future speculation and “innovation” activity. Mobile Social Software wants to be new. It wants to be different so that its future remains full of promise and not something that has already been done.
What makes it new and exciting? The answer lies in the way Mobile Social Software coheres social practices that arise in mobile, untethered contexts into a category of technical designs that support the creation and maintenance of one’s social networks. The speculation in play is that what worked for the world of tethered, sit-ata- desk social networks — Social Software — may work when you add the “mobile” prefix. This may not always be the case, of course. Mobile usage contexts and scenarios are quite different from those of the tethered usage context, a point sometimes lost in the design of mobile applications.But Mobile Social Software is also age-old in Internet years, and this point is crucial to consider. As new as we want it to be, and as excited as speculators in this new terrain are, it is crucial to think about Mobile Social Software in its precise context. Mobility and the techniques for articulating social practices in untethered usage contexts — this is really what we mean by Mobile Social Software when we are also not just angling for some nibbles from the venture capital community. The mobile phone itself, before it became a computing platform, was the Mobile Social Software artifact par excellence. Voice — and only later — text-based SMS, allows for the kind of social communication that latter day Mobile Social Software strives to accomplish. Voice and text by themselves are often enough to be mobile, sociable and in one’s social loop because such registers of communication are simple in the way they facilitate mobile, untethered linkages amongst people.
Presence Awareness
Presence Awareness is a form of social communication that provides contextual cues indicating the location, availability for interaction, tasks and activities as well as other indicators as to the state of being of those in one’s social network. Instant Messaging provides a form of Presence Awareness merely visual and auditory cues indicating whether one’s buddies are available, active or away. More advanced cues indicate whether a buddy is using a mobile device (a Sidekick or Blackberry, for instance) as an IM terminal, suggesting that they may be on the go, rather than at a tethered workstation. Much early investigations into presence awareness were focused on its use in collaborative work environments through the use of messaging and video “telepresence” style video displays.[3, 5, 6, 12, 13] This research is largely focused on creating workplace efficiencies by allowing colleagues to know each others availability or present tasks, useful when working on collaborative projects, particularly when team members are working remotely. While these systems are useful, they raise consequential privacy and surveillance issues. Another potentially fruitful area for Presence Awareness is more casual social contexts. Recent work has begun to explore the interpersonal uses of Presence Awareness in a way that aims at creating a mobile, digital networked form of reaching out and touching someone.[8, 12] Ito and Okabe, in their insight rich explication of the technosocial situatedness of mobile messaging amongst Japanese teens, describe “ambient virtual co-presence”, a kind of “ongoing background awareness of others, and of keeping multiple channels of communication open.”[7] A characteristic of Presence Awareness in the context of their study is a “sense of ambient accessibility, a shared virtual space that is generally available between a few friends or with a loved one” that “do not require a deliberate opening of a channel of communication but are based on the expectation that someone is in ‘earshot.’” As distinct from the goal of creating workplace efficiencies Presence Awareness in the interpersonal social situation has a far subtler agenda — communicating affection, state-of-mind, present activities and emotional moods. This register of communication has less to do with finding out whether a colleague is available for a conference call, and more to do with projecting “..a sign or smile or glance that calls attention to the communicator, a way of entering somebody’s virtual peripheral vision.”[7] Paulos describes this kind of Presence Awareness as a kind of mediated communications tool that create “nondisruptive interaction when not co-located” that people can send “quickly, efficiently, and often without being distracted from their current task.” “Communal interfaces should allow for easily establishing and maintaining emotional, ambient connections. Our studies of co-located human interactions led us to the following design criteria for communal interfaces: (1) nondisruptive I/O (i.e., ambient), (2) always on, (3) personal association to the communication artifact, (4) support for nonverbal communication, and (5) attempt to provide some level of exchange of human emotions (i.e., emotional interface). gestures.”[9] Several Presence Awareness projects that fall within this design idiom straddle the boundary between emerging and art technology practice, and are worth mentioning. These are forms of Presence Awareness that are specifically designed for scenarios in which individuals are in different physical locations, yet still wish to share some sense of “presence” with others, typically with a minimal degree of interaction. What is unique about these projects is the apparent contradiction in creating rich, meaningful conveyances of presence
through a minimal interaction syntax.
Presence Awareness is a form of social communication that provides contextual cues indicating the location, availability for interaction, tasks and activities as well as other indicators as to the state of being of those in one’s social network. Instant Messaging provides a form of Presence Awareness merely visual and auditory cues indicating whether one’s buddies are available, active or away. More advanced cues indicate whether a buddy is using a mobile device (a Sidekick or Blackberry, for instance) as an IM terminal, suggesting that they may be on the go, rather than at a tethered workstation. Much early investigations into presence awareness were focused on its use in collaborative work environments through the use of messaging and video “telepresence” style video displays.[3, 5, 6, 12, 13] This research is largely focused on creating workplace efficiencies by allowing colleagues to know each others availability or present tasks, useful when working on collaborative projects, particularly when team members are working remotely. While these systems are useful, they raise consequential privacy and surveillance issues. Another potentially fruitful area for Presence Awareness is more casual social contexts. Recent work has begun to explore the interpersonal uses of Presence Awareness in a way that aims at creating a mobile, digital networked form of reaching out and touching someone.[8, 12] Ito and Okabe, in their insight rich explication of the technosocial situatedness of mobile messaging amongst Japanese teens, describe “ambient virtual co-presence”, a kind of “ongoing background awareness of others, and of keeping multiple channels of communication open.”[7] A characteristic of Presence Awareness in the context of their study is a “sense of ambient accessibility, a shared virtual space that is generally available between a few friends or with a loved one” that “do not require a deliberate opening of a channel of communication but are based on the expectation that someone is in ‘earshot.’” As distinct from the goal of creating workplace efficiencies Presence Awareness in the interpersonal social situation has a far subtler agenda — communicating affection, state-of-mind, present activities and emotional moods. This register of communication has less to do with finding out whether a colleague is available for a conference call, and more to do with projecting “..a sign or smile or glance that calls attention to the communicator, a way of entering somebody’s virtual peripheral vision.”[7] Paulos describes this kind of Presence Awareness as a kind of mediated communications tool that create “nondisruptive interaction when not co-located” that people can send “quickly, efficiently, and often without being distracted from their current task.” “Communal interfaces should allow for easily establishing and maintaining emotional, ambient connections. Our studies of co-located human interactions led us to the following design criteria for communal interfaces: (1) nondisruptive I/O (i.e., ambient), (2) always on, (3) personal association to the communication artifact, (4) support for nonverbal communication, and (5) attempt to provide some level of exchange of human emotions (i.e., emotional interface). gestures.”[9] Several Presence Awareness projects that fall within this design idiom straddle the boundary between emerging and art technology practice, and are worth mentioning. These are forms of Presence Awareness that are specifically designed for scenarios in which individuals are in different physical locations, yet still wish to share some sense of “presence” with others, typically with a minimal degree of interaction. What is unique about these projects is the apparent contradiction in creating rich, meaningful conveyances of presence
through a minimal interaction syntax.
