“Transforming Cultures and Communities in the Age of Instant Access”
A Professor of mine recommended this book and for those of us concerned with the subject of cell phones and culture I thought this book would be relevant. So far I’m enjoying reading excerpts from this book even though I am using it as a resource for a term paper.
I suppose there is a possibility that corporations could find difficulty in trying to use locative media successfully. Suppose that McDonalds for example decides to use bluetooth to advertise as obnoxiously as they undoubtedly would, and they point out all of their locations to show “convenience.” What the consumer might see on a map, however, is their neighborhood being overrun with McDonalds’s. For example, near my house, there is a McDonalds in a shopping center, and just across the freeway is a WalMart with another McDonalds embedded inside it. Overlay that map with a map of all the Burger Kings and then Wendy’s and Carls Jr. Then the consumer begins to feel overwhelmed and pushes away from fastfood burger places altogether.
They will probably be careful to avoid this in their marketing strategies, but at the same time, locative interventionists will able to spread these concerns to the people. It may even become possible to falsify corporate advertising or bring to light certain characteristics about a company that they don’t want known. “Avoid the McDonalds on the right; they’ve been having problems with health codes.” “Clothing sold here was made in sweatshops that use child labor: see map for more details, or read the findings by investigative reporters.”
As locative stuff spreads wider and more intricately, it will be interesting to see how business will need to change to keep up.
It took me a while but I found something: Socialight. The demo video kind of creeped me out. Not only was it backed with a jazzy, muzak, shopping mall soundtrack, but there was no mention (of course) about the surveillance issues surrounding this service. Of course, I have been reading a lot of Naomi Wolf lately, so that could just be the paranoia about closed societies talking.
Anyway, this Socialight service offers location based information generated by consumers for consumers that loads to your cell phone to give you suggestions on where to shop, dine, and be entertained. Think Yelp.com but tagged to locations for you to discover as you move through the environment. The example in the video of looking for the pretzel cart–that happens to be right around the corner–raised many questions for me personally: Would they have ever tried this pretzel cart if they hadn’t been notified? Will this help fill out entertainment venues? Is this service likely to aid impulsive purchases? Will this drive people further out of reality and into the lcd screens of their mobile devices? This service/project looks like the beginning of corporate/capitalist adaptation of the locative media format. Would anyone use this service, or is it too Patriot Act creepy?
