Places and Spaces

By Ian, on August 6th, 2009

We call the Internet a place. We go to sites. Marketing people talk about destinations.

But that’s rubbish. The Internet is with me, and increasingly with most people, all of the time. It follows us as we go to other places. Increasingly, it helps us to navigate those places. You have probably seen it already, but if you haven’t, check this video of the tube-finder iPhone app.

This is the way we’re going. Digital isn’t something you can only do at your screen any more. It’s in your pocket, at your fingertips. You don’t go online any more – you simply shift between different-shaped terminals. We are already android. And your experience of digital isn’t something you do sat at a computer any more. It’s on your billboards, in your pub, driving your telly and your travel. It’s all around you all the time. Augmented reality. ~~It’s projected in 64-bit colour at your retina~~ (oops – no, sorry — that’s next year). It’s not about screens, either, it’s fountains and traffic lights and fridges. We don’t live our lives online or offline, but inline. (That’s an expression I stole from Timo Veikkola, strategist at The Future Laboratory who spoke for us last year).

Virtual Reality used to require a massive pair of goggles and gloves; now it is in your pocket.

So where am I going? The language of places and spaces, and sites and destinations, is outdated. Maybe it always was – a hand-me-down from broadcast TV and media that required physical outlets — like newspapers — that we took on board because we didn’t have any other words.

Stowe Boyd talks about us living in a state of flow instead. I get the idea, but am not quite comfortable with it. There’s something there (like ‘river of news’) that suggests being sat under a shower all day. And I also have uneasy feelings around the idea of ‘going with the flow’, which is all too true of a lot of online activity. (Green Twitter badges for Iran? eh?) This is something we work with not absorb.

We’re screaming for better metaphors about our on inline lives. Maybe we shouldn’t be searching for them. Maybe this is just too new and the next stage of evolution – we’ll work out the metaphors in retrospect.

Forgive me a quick plug. But. This is what the i-Design Conference is about on September 24.