Social disclosure of place: From location technology to communication practices

I Smith, S Consolvo, A Lamarca, J Hightower… - … 2005, Munich, Germany …, 2005 - Springer
I Smith, S Consolvo, A Lamarca, J Hightower, J Scott, T Sohn, J Hughes, G Iachello…
Pervasive Computing: Third International Conference, PERVASIVE 2005, Munich …, 2005Springer
Communication of one's location as part of a social discourse is common practice, and we
use a variety of technologies to satisfy this need. This practice suggests a potentially useful
capability that technology may support more directly. We present such a social location
disclosure service, Reno, designed for use on a common mobile phone platform. We
describe the guiding principles that dictate parameters for creating a usable, useful and
ubiquitous service and we report on a pilot study of use of Reno for a realistic social network …
Abstract
Communication of one’s location as part of a social discourse is common practice, and we use a variety of technologies to satisfy this need. This practice suggests a potentially useful capability that technology may support more directly. We present such a social location disclosure service, Reno, designed for use on a common mobile phone platform. We describe the guiding principles that dictate parameters for creating a usable, useful and ubiquitous service and we report on a pilot study of use of Reno for a realistic social network. Our preliminary results reveal the competing factors for a system that facilitates both manual and automatic location disclosure, and the role social context plays in making such a lightweight communication solution work.
Springer