Rough Notes for Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova – Networked Objects and the New Ecology of Things

In Articles on 2 June 2006 tagged blogjects, events, internet of things, Reboot 8 with no comments

Anything can have meaning.

Sources

• Internet of things report by ITU
• Shaping things — Sterling, “spimes”
• Thinglink
• Manifesto of networked objects

Number of conversations. ITU report: philosophy related to biz efficiency, what about social dimension?

Blogjects Does the thing itself participate in content circulation? E.g.: AIBO blog platform, indicator of how an instrument can engage in social web.

Geospatial traces E.g.: Flight aware, see airplane trajectories. Interesting thing is how bodies become digital manifestations, the other way around is exciting too. Occupying the world in a more sustainable way.

Showing where objects are. Currently this stuff comes from military or art world. They also know where they’ve been.

Tail number is like thinglink for planes. CIA terror planes – plane-spotters – unmarked planes.

If objects start blogging we might get new insights in how the world works.

Blogjects know their origin. E.g.: “How is stufff made”

Blogjects have agency, they can trigger actions and shape social practice. E.g.: TripSense. Tracking driving habits. Provides access to how he moved about SF. Impact he had on environment. How many trips he made. Insight on how he could be more eco-friendly.

Blogjects provide for new logistics.

So what?

It’s not just about technical communication and interfacing of objects. It’s about the social dimension.

This is part of a global trend, things being part of a larger ecology.

Creating legibility and transparency

Blogging pigeon. GSM backpack. Nice because it elevates the pigeon and is very low-tech.

Sending purchased objects to MySpace.

Establishing relationships between physical and virtual worlds. Barcodes, tags, stickers, etc. Nabaztag. Weak signals > blogjects.

Moving ahead

• series of workshops to design blogjects
• online and offline discourse
• cataloguing and track blogjects

Their questions

• how to go from biz efficiency to social sustainability?
• are blogjects up to the challenge?
• are social beings prepared to interact with blogjects?

Our questions Q Maybe it’s like objects turning them more into nature in the sense that bthey talkj back and are not part of us. A We’re cohabiting with our artefacts.

Q Are objects now doing ethnography of us? A Companies are interested in that idea, even beyond ethnography, usage tracking. Is that s’thing we want?

http://reboot.dk/wiki/Networkedobjectsandthenewecologyof_things

Related posts:

1. Rough Notes for Stowe Boyd – The Revolution Will Be Socialized
2. Rough Notes for Doc Searls – Keynote
3. Rough Notes From Euan Semple – There’s Something Going on Here That Is Bigger Than Any of Us