Tue, 04 Feb 2003 16:16:47 GMT

BuddySpace.
Now that the notion of presence is beginning to infuse our electronic communication, an inevitable next question is: presence where? Marc Eisenstadt, chief scientist at the Knowledge Media Institute of the Open University in the UK, wrote to show me a Jabber-based system called BuddySpace that locates presence indicators on maps. In the map shown here, Marc (top row, third photo from right) is present in the office, but idle. Martin Dzbor (bottom row, far right), KMI's “chief presence architect,” is present and active. And that little dot on the US map, in New England, is me, present and active.
[Jon's Radio]

ooo this looks cool. I'm not a big fan of presence theory, thinking that presence is more or less a fiction based on various assumptions which have yet to be really shown to my satisfaction, yet lots of people seem to think that pictures and video help form a 'presence' for others and spend lots of money showing that and using that… such is life