Digital Personas
Posted by Martin on Apr 20, 2005 in MobileI have many digital personas. My blog, my CV, my Flickr photoss, my LinkedIn account etc. It looks like Nokia are going to give me another one with Sensor. Sensor is a Bluetooth-based social networking program. While not a new concept, the execution looks good and the fact that it will ship with Nokia Series 60 phones should improve its chance of success where other similar apps have failed. If you have the time its worth viewing this presentation on its development.
From the looks of it you can select a template, enter some text, add some pictures/sounds and publish your profile. Other people running the same application and in Bluetooth proximity can then find it and view it. While this sounds like a blog editor it isn't, its more akin to a web page publisher. There's no history, no archive.
But I want it to do so much more. I want to be able to share my profile beyond Bluetooth. I want to publish it to job sites, Social Networks, dating services and to conference attendee lists. Of course each of these might require a different view of my profile so I want to be able to control what I publish to each audience. It would be good too if I could write and publish my blog entries with it too.
If I'm going to publish my phone's content to a wider audience I want to use just one application to do it with not two (Lifeblog & Sensor). There's no need to use a different application just because the audience is different. Of course the published content maybe served to different people in different ways (Sensor for Bluetooth, Movable Type for the Web), but I only want one application to control what I publish.
There's an argument that asks why I need to publish at all. I view publishing as the act of making the decision of who sees what. Where I publish too and how it is accessed are different questions. I might just publish to my phone and serve my target communities from there (given IPv6, 3 or 4G and free data transfer).
So while I welcome Sensor and wish it well I do so in the hope that it is only the start of enabling me to manage all my digital personas from one place.
Further Reading on Nokia Sensor: Per Persson
Comments
Yes, publishing multiple personas in different contexts for different audiences is of course a must for socially concerned people. However, it also increases complexity of such a central identity expression editor/publisher.
For instance, how can the user be given feedback on what persona s/he is displaying right now, and to whom? With Sensor the rule will be simple: anyone around you can see your digital persona (nobody else). Based on this rule, user will adapt their content accordingly -> easy to understand.
Another example is users' awareness of cost. If you can publish over different network technologies (GSM/G3/WLAN/Bluetooth) - as you are proposing - users will be uncertain about the cost implications of their actions. Since Sensor is solely based on Bluetooth, user will know that everything is for free -> increase the willingness to play with technology/multimedia/communication tools.
Let's see how Sensor's simple publishing logic will be received by the consumers. Personally I think we should start simple, let users learn the social practices and THEN introduce more complex systems of digital persona(s) and publication.
Happy Sensoring!
/Per
Product Manager of Nokia Sensor application
Posted by: Per Persson | April 21, 2005 03:36 PM
Now Nokia Sensor application is available for download at:
http://www.nokia.com/sensor
Cheers :-)
Posted by: younghee | May 9, 2005 03:52 PM