The New Presence
by Fred Stutzman
November 13, 2007
Introduction
For the past few months, we've been hearing quite a bit about “presence” in social software applications. Presence is an interesting concept; with social software applications, we can digitally be close to a distant group of contacts. Of course, we've been using software to be present with each other since the earliest days of the net. So what makes presence so interesting now, and how does it stand to change the way we think about social software in the future? In this article, I'll explore presence in detail, highlighting some of the top presence applications and exploring how presence is a vital concept of Web 2.0. To do this requires a little context, so let's begin by exploring the evolution of presence over the years.
Presence 0.1
Ever since the invention of the internet, we have been using it as a tool to erase boundaries, to bring us closer together. From the first email in 1971, we've found ways to leverage the network to remove the boundaries of space and time. In doing so, we've created technologies that help us feel closer to people--regardless of distance. The earliest presence applications were clumsy and asynchronous, but the fact one could reach out via the net and contact one another with keystrokes changed the way we think about social interaction. And we haven't ever looked back since.
Defining Presence
Before we progress, it might be useful to throw a definition around the type of presence we'll be discussing. As you might imagine, in computing there are many definitions and interpretations of presence. Virtual reality researchers, for instance, have been interested in presence for many years. The immersive virtual environments developed by these researchers create physical presence--the feeling that you're physically near someone far away. In this article, we're going to be talking about a looser concept of social presence, in which technologies enable us to feel closer to our existing social networks.
Perhaps a simpler definition of social presence is in order. That's good, because I've got one--a social presence tool is one that keeps you up to date on people you care about. The presence that we'll explore today has three dimensions: informational, temporal, and geolocational. Informational presence is simple; when social software tools inform you about what your friends are up to, this is informational presence. For a real-world analogy, think about when your friend updates their social network profile or posts pictures online--it is sort of like running into them on the street and catching up. With technology, however, we can maintain this informational presence with hundreds, even thousands of people--something we could never do in offline spaces.
Temporal presence allows you to know what your friends are doing at any time. You log on to Facebook, and you see that 20 of your friends are online: you may not know what they are doing, or where they are, but you know you are online with them. When a buddy shows up on an instant messaging platform as online, you know what they are doing at that instant. Finally, geolocational presence lets us know where our friends are at the moment; we can get this data from a GPS-enabled phone, RFID systems, or a service like Plazes, that maps your location to the network access point you're using. Geolocational presence is almost in a league of its own--it is very powerful information, and extremely useful in many social contexts.
Presence 1.0
The first presence system I encountered was the AOL buddy list. In my early days of logging on to the Web, I found it fascinating that I could get a sense that I was with my friends, even if we were all just in front of CRTs in our family rooms. This was unique knowledge: I could see when my friends logged on, I could tell if they were away. These cues actually created a sense of being close to my friends, that I knew I could reach out to them when I wanted, to share a link or coordinate a social event. In its simplicity, it was profound.
AOL buddy lists, of course, were the precursor to the AOL instant messenging system. AOL Instant Messenger introduced millions of individuals to presence, becoming one of the most popular applications of all time. The simple dimensions of presence in early IM systems--knowing if your buddies are online, knowing if they are away, knowing if one is responding to you--color how we think about presence today. That a desktop computer could be a realtime gateway to one's friends changed how many of us thought about the personal computer.
Presence and Information Needs
Presence information is extremely powerful, as it is information about those we value. Compared to, say, our bank statements, it is unique, visceral type of information. With presence tools, we know when a friend has had a breakup, or when they've had a new baby. With presence tools, we can maintain a much larger circle of friends, knowing bits and pieces about people we probably wouldn't keep in contact with otherwise. In fact, we might even maintain some relationships just because our friends use similar presence tools--case in point: the old coworker who we IM with a few times a year just because they are on our buddy list.
In essence, presence applications enable us to process more information, and maintain more ties because it offloads some of the complexity of relationship maintenance to the network. An old friend has a birthday--you can easily post to their Wall or send a Twitter their way. This leads us to two key questions about presence applications: what kind of friendships are we marinating with presence tools, and what are the new privacy concerns? If I'm sharing my geolocation with friends at all times, does privacy cease to exist?
We're still very much in the early stages of presence applications, and it is quite possible that we may push back on the idea of the fully present society. But the potentially valuable and just plain neat aspects of the technology are also quite compelling. In the next section, we're going to look at Presence 2.0--where we are today, and where we'll go in the future.
Presence 2.0
I take a big-tent approach to presence; things like text messages, Twitters, Facebook status updates--all of these give me cues about what my friends are doing at any time. Unfortunately, this article can't possibly cover all presence applications, so I'm going to concentrate on a few exemplars that cover the three types of social presence: informational, temporal, and geolocational.
Facebook is a multidimensional presence application, though we tend to think of it as a static information tool. In Facebook, one fills out a profile and articulates their social network, creating an information space for their friends and contacts. The presence magic occurs with the news feed. The news feed is an RSS-like interface that runs in Facebook, letting one know what their friends are up to in the service. If a friend edits their profile and plans to attend an event, one can discover this information by viewing the news feed.
Figure 1. Facebook
As Facebook is a social nexus for millions of individuals, such information is extremely compelling. It's only natural to want to know what one's friends are up to--in fact, Facebook creates many opportunities for offline interaction, as users are increasingly more aware of what their friends are doing. I like to think of this as "social surveillance." While surveillance often has pejorative contexts, the social surveillance we undertake as a result of Facebook isn't necessarily dangerous or bad, even though we occasionally feel a little guilty about it.
Twitter and Jaiku
Twitter and Jaiku are "lifestreaming" apps that enable all three types of social presence. The two services, while similar, have different approaches; I'll attempt to illustrate the differences.
Figure 2. Twitter
Twitter allows users to post messages of 140 characters or less; these messages are then sent to friends via the Twitter interface, text message, or one of the many tools built using Twitter's API. While we might not think of Twitter as a traditional presence tool--I like to think of it as a slow moving chat room--Twitter's users have adapted it as a very effective presence tool. Users commonly post what they're up to and where they are going, and use the mobile integration to find one another at conferences and events. Perhaps what is most interesting is that Twitter wasn't designed as a presence tool; rather, users found that the simple service was well suited for presence applications and built their own set of rules.
Figure 3. Jaiku
Jaiku, recently purchased by Google, was explicitly built as a presence tool. Employing a similar philosophy to Twitter, Jaiku provides users a way to share their lifestreams with their friends. By keeping up with a friend on Jaiku, one is provided a rich view of their activity. Furthermore, Jaiku built its tool to run on smart phones, a benefit being that Jaiku mobile users are aware of their proximity to others with Bluetooth. Not only is one aware of their friends' activities, but Jaiku creates serendipity by letting you know when your friends are near you.
AOL Instant Messenger and Presence Client
Without a question, AOL's Instant Messenger is the most widely used presence application. Millions upon millions of users boot up a messaging client each morning, or simply leave one running on their computers all the time. Mobile versions of the product are also popular, as well as a Presence Client that lets others know your online status.
Figure 4. AIM Presence
Why have instant messaging clients remained popular and pervasive? Put simply, they answer our presence information needs efficiently and effectively. The client lets us know who is online and when; with away messages and status indicators we can get a good sense about where our friends are and what they are doing. And as a messaging channel, instant messenger programs provide an alternative to texting, emailing, or wall posting. With open messaging protocols like Jabber, it's obvious that we'll continue to use messaging clients for quite some time.
Loopt
I'm very excited about mobile geopresence tools, and one of my favorites is Loopt. The concept behind Loopt is simple: using GPS, one can see where their friends are located. If a friend is around the corner or at the mall with you, you'll be able to tell that you're near them and find (or avoid) them accordingly. The simplicity belies the power of the tool--knowing where one's social network is at all times is both fascinating and frightening. Regardless of how one feels about it, geolocation is crucial social presence information, and we're going to see this feature more commonly on mobile devices. Looking at next-generation tools, Yahoo's Fire Eagle seeks to combine geolocation presence information with the lifestream; it is only a matter of time before we can broadcast our lives with geocoded data from just about any phone.
Figure 5. Loopt
Conclusion
We're always interested in what our friends and family members are doing--where they are, what they're up to. Ever since the earliest days of the internet, we've been using technology to keep up with one another. As computers get smaller and mobile devices get more powerful, we're seeing a new, profound shift in the way we manage and mediate our relationships through the internet. With presence tools, we're able to keep up with more people, and expose ourselves to more social opportunities, than ever before. In essence, the internet is shifting from a place where we have relationships to the place that makes deeper relationships possible, thanks in no small part to presence technologies.