Tag and Scan
January 29th, 2004
Tag and Scan implements a neat idea; mobile phone users can ‘tag’ physical locations with a message containing a title, a description or a photo. The idea is to overlay the physical landscape with a series of public and private grids, which are then searchable in various ways.
The demo is a big help in visualising how the system works. Just as I was thinking that a user would need some way to ignore tags left by people whose tastes he/she simply disagreed with, I came to a page which explained that tags can be rated by users. I still think they’d need a killfile feature, so that if I find that a particular user in my area invariably offers comments which are useless to me (whilst quite possibly of interest to others) then I can filter them out.
As someone who still doesn’t own a mobile phone this isn’t a system which I’ll benefit from any time soon, but I find the concept of a web - actually, several independent webs - of virtual graffitti overlaid on our surroundings deliciously science fictional.
[Via Play Journal]