Full Circle Associates

While I was sitting in Ana Marie Cox's keynote at SXSW the other day, I popped open the 'Rendezvous' window in iChat. Rendezvous allows you to see people who are using iChat nearby, even if you don't have them on your chat friend's list. I've never seen more than one person on my list, even at popular net cafes here in Austin. At the keynote, there were easily 80 people on my list.

I was suprised to see that most of the people on the list had used the little status message feature to indicate that they were at SXSW. Some said they were in the keynote. And some said exactly what seat they were in...I was trying to write a post about the keynote for Austinist, and wanted a picture of Ms. Cox speaking. Unfortunately, I was stuck way in the back behind Tantek's giant head, so I couldn't get a photo. So, I set my status message to a call for help.

Can you take a photo?

Just seconds later, Joshua Greenberg, a guy I had met the night before in a drunken stupor, IM-ed to offer a photo. He took it, synced it to his computer, resized it, and sent it over IM. It took about 2 minutes.

I got the photo, logged in to Austinist's MovableType system, and uploaded it for my post. That took another minute. The photo was up on the web, and people in the room and also people all over the world.

So, what happened? Why is this interesting to me?

Joshua and I posted a virtual message on a message board that did not exist physically, but was tied to a specific location. He responded, and was able to take advantage of his slightly better vantage point to record a notable experience. He transmitted a digital photo, first over a wire, then over the airwaves to me, where I transferred it over airwaves then wires to a server somewhere in New York. While the notable event was still occuring, two strangers collaborated to share the event with the world, and record it for posterity. It all took about three minutes.

Both of these things made me think about how interesting this temporary, location-based virtual community board was, and how it had arisen, not from a software package specifically designed for this purpose, but from the convergence of few random existing technologies. And the designers of these technologies doubtfully had this sort of thing in mind. It was simply people realizing they could use familiar technologies in new and social ways to enhance a shared physical experience. It was as if the net was an added layer upon the real physical world -- something you simply need peer through a lense to see.