Net Locality E-Book

Eric Gordon

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 347

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The first book to provide an introduction to the new theory of Net Locality and the profound effect on individuals and societies when everything is located or locatable.

• Describes net locality as an emerging form of location awareness central to all aspects of digital media, from mobile phones, to Google Maps, to location-based social networks and games, such as Foursquare and facebook.

• Warns of the threats these technologies, such as data surveillance, present to our sense of privacy, while also outlining the opportunities for pro-social developments.

• Provides a theory of the web in the context of the history of emerging technologies, from GeoCities to GPS, Wi-Fi, Wiki Me, and Google Android.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Net Locality

Organizing the Web

Location Awareness

Reading the Book

References

Chapter 1: Maps

Mapping Social Information

GIS: Converging Maps and Computers

Web GIS

Net Locality

Is the World Too Much With Us?

References

Chapter 2: Mobile Annotations

Locating Devices

Attaching Information to Location

Tracing and Mapping Locations

Mobile Annotation

Location Awareness Goes Mainstream

Location is Everywhere

References

Chapter 3: Social Networks and Games

Digital Connection in Physical Spaces

Games and Interaction

The Expansion of Location Awareness

New Spaces, New Practices

References

Chapter 4: Urban Spaces

Good Ol' Public Spaces

“Getting Away with Going Away”

Performance In/Of Public

Transformed Urban Spaces

References

Chapter 5: Community

Community and Society

Neighborhood Connectivity

Designing Engagement

Hyperlocal News

Government 2.0

The Politics of Net Localities

References

Chapter 6: Privacy

The Public Nature of Location Data

The Privatization of Public Spaces

Power in Net Localities

References

Chapter 7: Globalization

Japan

China

Considering the Net-Local Future

References

Chapter 8: Conclusion

Technological Infrastructures

Social Infrastructures

Moving Forward

References

Index

This edition first published 2011

© Eric Gordon and Adriana de Souza e Silva

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gordon, Eric, 1973–

Net locality : why location matters in a networked world / Eric Gordon and Adriana de Souza e Silva. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-8061-0 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4051-8060-3 (paperback)

1. Digital communications. 2. Integrated services digital networks. 3. Wireless communication systems. 4. World Wide Web. 5. Internet–Technol gical innovations. 6. Digital communications– Social aspects. I. Silva, Adriana de Souza e. II. Title.

TK5103.75.G675 2011

004.6708–dc22

2011001785

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs (9781444340648);

Wiley Online Library (9781444340679); ePub (9781444340655)

para vovô Evandro (in memoriam) [Adriana]

Acknowledgments

It is a little ironic that two authors, each on a different continent, are writing a book about the importance of location. With one of us in Boston and the other moving between Raleigh, North Carolina and Copenhagen, Denmark, we have experienced the challenges that geographic distance can bring. And yet, through Twitter, instant messaging (IM), email, Skype, and various and sundry other technologies, we have worked together to write a book that is at once an analysis and testament to the power and flexibility of location in a networked world.

The challenges of physical distance were only compounded by the challenge of writing a book about a moving target. Just as we were trying to grasp the correspondence of our everyday writing schedules, we were trying to focus in on a topic that is changing at lightning pace. Location and location-based media are evolving so rapidly that we are sure that between now and when this book is actually published, we will be looking at a different world. So, in writing a book-length treatment on the topic, we knew we couldn't focus on the daily changes in the media landscape. We had to focus on the conceptual issues that bring all those little changes together. This book provides a perspective from which to view the emerging media landscape and imagine how it will transform in the years to come.

Like any project of this scope, we could not have accomplished what we did without a great deal of support. From the conversations we had in classrooms to the debates with colleagues, so many perspectives have influenced this book. But there are a few people who deserve special mention. We want to thank Steve Schirra for his tireless efforts in editing the final manuscript and providing substantive feedback. We asked for a little help and he gave a lot. He has been a great collaborator and friend throughout the process. We want to thank Jean Wang for her insights into the global context of net locality and her enormous help with crafting Chapter 7 and the conclusion of the book. We would also like to thank Jordan Frith for contributing to many of the ideas about locational privacy and surveillance present in Chapter 6. His insights on the personalization and control of public spaces through location-aware technologies were a great influence to that chapter. Finally, we want to thank Amani Naseem for her meticulous work in organizing and formatting the long list of references, as well as her work in securing permissions for the book's images. We too often forget how difficult it is to negotiate these details and how important it is to have talented and intelligent people near by to lend a helping hand. We also want to thank our home institutions, the IT University of Copenhagen, North Carolina State University, and Emerson College for providing financial and structural support during this process.

We owe a word of gratitude to Elizabeth Swayze, our editor at Wiley-Blackwell, who expressed interest in the project long ago and continued to champion it through thick and thin. She remained patient during its many delays and served as a careful reader of the manuscript and provided much needed feedback about style and tone.

We would also like to thank our family and friends. Although they did not directly contribute to the production of this book, they have provided us with lots of support. Specifically, I [Adriana] would like to thank my husband John Charles for his love and support during this process. Our long conversations about privacy and his input about the text were critical for the final outcome. And I [Eric] would like to thank my wife Justeen for her patience and insights, and my kids, Elliot and Adeline, for letting their dad obsess about something other than them for just a little while.

Finally, I [Adriana] would like to thank Eric for suggesting that we could combine efforts to write this book. Collaborations are never easy, but we were so eager to write this that the last year of work seems to have gone by really quickly. And I [Eric] would like to thank Adriana for bringing her critical insight and attention to detail to this project. In the spirit of true collaboration, the book is an amalgamation of our respective expertise that arose from spirited (and sometimes very spirited) deliberation.

Eric Gordon and Adriana de Souza e Silva

September 2010

Introduction

A man is walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago. He shares a sidewalk with crowds of anonymous people. He sees skyscrapers and signage extending to the horizon. There is a lot going on – people talking, walking, playing, fighting, screaming, driving, and smiling. He sees a coffee shop that excites his interest. He pulls out his phone and checks into a location-based social network (LBSN). The application makes note of his location and registers his first stop of the day. He touches the “tips” tab on the application and looks at what other people have said about nearby locations and discovers that many have complained about its unfriendly service and high prices. While doing that, he gets notified that someone in his social network just checked into another coffee shop down the street. He walks over there to meet her.

The city for this man does not end with the visibly observable. It contains annotations and connections, information and orientations from a network of people and devices that extend well beyond what is in front of him. And he is not alone. It is difficult to find a mobile phone these days that is only a phone. Most phones send text messages, access the web, run applications, and include a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver so that it can be located in the physical world. We used to talk about the World Wide Web as an interconnected information space set aside from the world we live in, but the world we live in and the web can no longer be so easily separated.

The spaces we interact with on a daily basis are filled with data – pictures, thoughts, reviews, and historical documentation – aggregated into accessible and usable bits of information. A Google search promptly uncovers thousands of references that are displayed according to the user's location. A mobile phone, through any number of applications, can locate its user and find nearby relevant information. The technologies we use to access the web are location aware. The amount of online data, from websites and social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook and Twitter, to text messages and images, is growing exponentially. And, increasingly, that data is associated with its longitude and latitude coordinates so that it can be sorted not only by the who, what, and when – but also by the . As location-aware phones become cheaper in much of the world, the number of people accessing and producing the world's data out is expanding significantly.