Products & Services
Instant messaging with place recognition
By Mike on 11 July 2008
INTERNATIONAL – Instant messaging has reared its head in many guises on mobile, from standard IM, to text message versions (SMS Chat for S60 3rd edition and Conversation), and multi-service solutions such as IM+. But today Nokia Beta Labs, released the first beta version Nokia Chat, the first IM app to use GPS to pinpoint the location of you and your friends.
The idea is that you can use Nokia Chat to do ‘old-fashioned’ instant messaging, but also engage with your friends on another level by sharing your location, sending them updates and arranging to meet via Nokia Maps.
This adds an interesting new twist on the whole IM scene, but is this something you’re keen to see included. I’m sitting on the fence at the moment, because I can currently appreciate the argument for it feeling, well, a little creepy. But on the flip-side, the fact remains you’re in total control. We’re going to be putting Nokia Chat through it’s paces as a team to see how the experience feels.
What do you think to GPS-enabled instant messaging. Good or bad? If you try Nokia Chat, let us know how you get on with it. Post your thoughts in the comment section below.
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Tags | Beta Labs, conversations, GPS, Nokia, Nokia Chat
July 11th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
This is the next step
well done !!
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July 11th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
From my experience as a UX researcher working on presence-related projects, I agree that being tracked by a system sounds scary for many mobile users.
The least such a system can do to address this is, as you say, to give users control over what is revealed to whom. Ideally, the system should allow users to lie about their position, e.g. by transmitting a believable false position. One could even have one’s position dynamically faked, so that it looks like you’re a good distance away from everybody else who has their tracking system on…
The usefulness of such a system to a group imho depends on the negotiated level of openness regarding one’s current position and the social practices around it. If no one expects anyone to be truthful, location info is simply not useful at all. If everybody expects everybody else to be truthful and always connected, it might feel restrictive to users who’d like to “sneak away” undetected. But those’ll find a way to explain that away…
There’s also a disconnect between the perceived level of usefulness of such a system: if everybody else has their status updated that’s very nice info to have. But I’d expect that being on everybody else’s radar is a much less attractive idea.
It’d be interesting to hear about your experiences around openness and truthfulness while using this system with your colleagues!
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July 11th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
From my experience as a UX researcher working on presence-related projects, I agree that being tracked by a system sounds scary for many mobile users.
The least such a system can do to address this is, as you say, to give users control over what is revealed to whom. Ideally, the system should allow users to lie about their position, e.g. by transmitting a believable false position. One could even have one’s position dynamically faked, so that it looks like you’re a good distance away from everybody else who has their tracking system on…
The usefulness of such a system to a group imho depends on the negotiated level of openness regarding one’s current position and the social practices around it. If no one expects anyone to be truthful, location info is simply not useful at all. If everybody expects everybody else to be truthful and always connected, it might feel restrictive to users who’d like to “sneak away” undetected. But those’ll find a way to explain that away…
There’s also a disconnect between the perceived level of usefulness of such a system: if everybody else has their status updated that’s very nice info to have. But I’d expect that being on everybody else’s radar is a much less attractive idea.
It’d be interesting to hear about your experiences around openness and truthfulness while using this system with your colleagues!
Reply
August 21st, 2008 at 11:44 am
Rather than getting LBS to a Chat scenario , it will be better for a more socialising site like Orkut. The chance that I chat with someone while mobile and tracking a nearby friend in map is way too trendy for the civilization. But searching for friends through a Social networking site in a geographic area and calling them for a party is more a feasible reason..Again I have to think twice before revealing my latitude/longitude for public.
However we can have business level usages like tracking slaes force, deliveries etc etc
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