Most of us entertain a sense of privacy on the internet within our virtual social worlds.
What could be found about you just using your name and the internet?
What if an installation used that information, and assigned you a marker which would reveal your “private” information from the web on a screen in front of an audience?
Anything that’s public information is nothing to be embarrassed about, right?
Although it’s hard to imagine many ways that this could be automated (if it were used on a site with a concept about privacy, for example), for starters there are lots of things listed on people’s public Facebook profiles — who they’re a fan of, who they’re friends with, etc.
Interesting idea, though, to reveal just how much you’re exposed on the web…
There are so many ways that that could be read wrong. In fact, this is actually a pretty cool idea both as an installation and an online piece.
A company called Barcinski and JeanJean did an interactive installation in the bathroom of a Flash conference in February, 2008. Attendees with Bluetooth-enabled devices were assigned a musical instrument virtually as they entered the bathroom, that would play with the other music in the bathroom. In the end, a 3 day musical piece was created by people in the bathroom.
It’s hard to explain, so fortunately they have an online demo that functions the same way.
Without a lot of effort from the participants, they were able to engage in a fun, socially interactive, musical experience.
From the Chicago Tribune via the blog “We Are Organized Chaos”:
There’s a theater in a suburb of Chicago that has started showing second-run movies (Zoolander, Office Space) with audience participation – by mobile text. The technology is called MuVChat.
“The system works this way: Audience members text to a central number, which runs their comments through software. The MuVChat software then displays the texts in a three-line configuration at the bottom of the screen, like a vertical ticker, as the movie plays. Sitting in the projector booth with a standard computer, Heald uses a profanity screening program and can, on the fly, filter comments and ban abusive users.”
The article states that most viewers make about 40 comments per movie and that just as many are interactions with other people in the audience or “Name that tune” for the soundtrack as there are more snarky comments for which movies like “Glitter” might be a hotbed for.
This is a kind of social interactivity technology we haven’t seen much of yet, but sounds very engaging, the sort of thing that certain demographics might seek out.
What other expansions of this technology can you think of?
“It’s not about stickiness on our website, it’s about slipperiness,” Bob Kraut, VP-marketing communications at Pizza Hut, said today at Ad Age’s Digital Conference in New York when describing the company’s approach to digital marketing. “We want people to come in and out as fast as they can because they know what they want and we want to give it to them in the minimum amount of time.”
As many sites and microsites are moving towards a more informational, less entertaining content slant, will it become true that time on site is not necessarily a valid measure of how valuable the site was to users?
The elevators at NY’s Standard Hotel now feature a permanent interactive video installation. Riders can look out of a viewing port to see a video tableau depicting the movement between the different levels of heaven and hell in sync with the up and down movement of the elevator.
The production company had originally thought about using a game engine to drive the visuals, but settled on a vertical canvas with looping elements.
Most of us entertain a sense of privacy on the internet within our virtual social worlds. 
