In its worst nightmarish iteration, this is what you can look forward to when I start putting my nascent moblogging into high gear! (I can hear a stampede to the exits as I type). Seriously, it looks like a camera phone will be in hand soon (the above pic was taken a couple of weeks ago, by a friend — he sent it to Naoko for me, hence the hearts, which were added unbeknownst to me), so knock on wood expect something new and hopefully not too pedestrian in this neighborhood in the near future.
In the meantime, the First International Moblogging Conference has been announced, to take place July 5th at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo. One of the conference organizers, Adam Greenfield, recently offered yet another well-considered piece on moblogging (in part), and how his interest in it fits in with, rather than deviates from, his concerns of design and usability that many of his readers know him by:
[Moblogging] offer[s]… a potential way for people to comment on, to annotate their corner of the world: I trust this organic grocer, the lines at this bank are out of hand, I got mugged at this corner a year to the day after my friend did, and so on. It’s this otherwise invisible or difficult-to-retrieve information that can help people make better choices about their neighborhoods, their resource allocations, and ultimately, where and how they want to live. This is a lot to ask of some software that lives on your phone, admittedly, but there’s nothing here beyond reach.
I have yet to decide the why’s and wherefores of adding moblogged posts to this site (and like this site over the last year, chances are a decision won’t be made, but rather an ongoing discovery process will be set in motion), but suffice it to say, Adam’s vision is nearer to my heart than the above, er, hearts.
People really seem to like this “Tokyo” place. How about a webloggers gasshuku in kyoto?
I can’t help but think the benefit of moblogging, versus blogging, isn’t necessarily the amount of specific information that would be available – which is how I read Greenfield’s quote. What he’s describing can be done, and is being done, quite well with plain vanilla blogging itself.
To build upon what has been discussed before, blogging can be differentiated from traditional diaries quantitatively in the ease of creating entries, also in its portability (any networked terminal) thus lowering the barriers to entry for relatively technologically savvy people who may otherwise not keep a journal. Blogging differentiates from the work of prior diarists qualitatively in that there is communication and feedback with an audience that could not be done with traditional diaries or even letter writing/newsletter publishing.
Moblogging, given both the abilities and the limitations of the tools, has a spontaneous, instant and, of course, mobile aspect to it that distinguishes it from traditional blogging. As I’ve seen it used so far, moblogging also has a greater immediacy of documentation – both the real and perceived lessening of the filtering of both the text and images as posted. However, I do not believe this aspect is necessarily inherent in the form, and may lessen/disappear as mobblogging matures.
-Jason
I’m not sure what you’re on about, Jason. You say blogging is quantitatively different from keeping a diary – how exactly?? In its “portability” – what, a diary isn’t portable??
I see from your site that you’re a lawayer. Is this how they trained you to think in Law school?