How Blogjects Can Become Taxonomic Glue

I’m really hopped up on the idea of the ubicamera that takes ubipictures. There are already hints of ubiquitous visual coverage with this “mutually assured flickering” whackiness of getting coverage of the same moment from a variety of perspectives. It happens, of course, with tagging concensus for events and so forth..(e.g. lift06 )

But I’m also interested in ways that the linkages between event images, or images taken at particular places can be linked in other ways — like the flickr camera we thought through in the workshop..a camera that was a Blogject that was able to disseminate to other proximate cameras either the photos it took or an index to its (the camera’s) flickr stream so that the second camera could link (as in, become contacts with) to the first camera and more seamlessly share photos from the event.

So, the scenario is something wherein tons of people are at the same concert, all taking photos, but most are strangers, so they don’t know who else is getting coverage. If their cameras can talk, they can help make the link.

The scenario isn’t one that completely closes a gap in linking people and their cameras together — tagging helps, too. Folksonomies can muddy the waters, but with enough variation, you can make links. But, like Weinberger reminds us, some of the leaves are going to get blown and scattered — structures in which small pieces are loosely joined are inevitably going to lead to small pieces breaking off and rolling under the sofa. What are ways to mitigate that kind of loss? Provide another layer of linkage, let the devices help us cohere in a more formally taxonomic structure. Formalize the taxonomy with things like location, time, event name — not only just the folksonomies. And sense human social beings are not the best at rigid taxonomies (like latitudes or timestamps or proper names of events with the correct spelling, or agreeing upon the proper name of locales or events), let devices, that have protocols for arbitrating and agreeing upon differences without getting in too much of a huff (although that could be argued) help out.

thought about after reading http://www.fredshouse.net/2006/04/making_ubiphotos_with_a_camera.html

Technorati Tags: ,