Elizabeth Windram, (2005) weblog: An Interactive Space for Engaging in Shared Experiences at a Distance

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Comments by SusanneHupfer

I found this position paper intriguing, and find the goal of supporting friends and family in sharing experiences at a distance to be quite a valuable one. I do still have some unanswered questions lingering in my mind after reading the paper. You've said that "most communication tools that exist today facilitate people in sharing information with each other, but not in actively constructing new experiences from a distance." I am struggling a bit to understand what qualifies as "actively constructing new experiences"; you've mentioned that shopping together online or watching a sports event individually and discussing it in the Weblog would be considered examples of new, shared experiences, but you contend that "most communication tools that exist today facilitate people in sharing information with each other, but not in actively constructing new experiences from a distance." I began to contemplate: If friends/family share the photos of their individual experiences at some shared, family-centric web site, is that an example of a shared experience, or is it still lacking some key feature? Does the act of compiling the photos in a common space, and perhaps commenting on one another's experiences, itself constitute a kind of shared experience, or not? Does a "shared experience" require group construction of some artifact(s) ( something our research group tends to call "co-construction")?

I also wondered if the subjects of your study were themselves able to pinpoint the "lack of shared experience" as something that was missing from their communications with family and friends? Or did they not notice it, but you noticed it and identified it as a ripe area for design?

For "Existing Tools," it may be very valuable to look at some massively multiplayer games, some of which seem focussed on creating virtual worlds for/by the gamers, and also systems such as "The Sims Online" for lessons and inspiration. Also, I'd suggest
taking a look at some of the newer "social networking communities"; one that immediately comes to mind is Flickr. Though it's debatable whether the participants there create "shared experiences" with one another, I think a case could be made that they do. At the very least, distinctive virtual communities seem to be forming there, indidviduals are gaining reputations, people are sharing photos from their individual lives and then commenting on one another's photos and activities, and so on. It would be an interesting thought-experiment to reflect on how much of your desired goal of "shared experience" could be achieved through having family-and-friends create a private Flickr group to share photos and comments among themselves. What would such a system still be missing?

Just some food for thought... I look forward to meeting you and hearing more about your project!

SusanneHupfer

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Comments by JudithDonath

I would like to see a discussion comparing this interface to using say a wiki for the same purpose.

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