Twitter as an augmented virtuality tool
We were at Podcamp Toronto over the weekend. It was a great event. Brain juices are still flowing with ideas!
An interesting thing about unconferences like Podcamp is the relationships you make and entertain using social networks. We had a good discussion on the subject on the train back to Montreal with Sean Power which was sitting next to us.
Real life social media events are rewarding and fun because you actually meet virtual friends. It is not new for online communities to meet in the real world. Social networks are great at bridging online and real world relationships. Twitter is most powerful at that.
The number of Twitter friends we met for the first time in person at Podcamp Toronto is simply amazing! It sometimes feels strange because some people know you, but you don’t recall them or you know them under an alias.
It made us think: Twitter is an augmented virtuality device! Wikipedia says:
Augmented virtuality (AV) (also referred to as Mixed reality) refers to the merging of real world objects into virtual worlds
With Twitter, what you do online becomes complemented by the real world. When it does, you realize Twitter’s incredible added value.
Meeting online friends in the real world enhances connections in the virtual world. Of course, you will meet new people with whom you will continue having online conversations.
Another extension of the AV concept is that when assisting presentations, comments and thoughts are exchanged through Twitter in real time (instead of whispering and disrupting the presentation) and then followed upon after the presentation in the real world.
By using hash tags and limiting conversations to the conference, the virtual and the real world are further blended when you virtually meet or discover people in the same room than you. You then look around, exchange a smile, continue the conversation in the virtual and finish the follow-up in person after the presentation.
Of course, for the same reasons, we also think Twitter is a form of augmented reality. What comes first? The chicken or the egg? The blending of the reality in the virtual or the virtual in the reality? Online or offline, one thing is sure, Twitter relationships remain real.
What do you think? Should Twitter be considered a form of augmented virtuality?
Tags: Social Media, Twitter
Feb 24, 2009
I respectfully disagree with the term Augmented Virtuality.
Actually, the problem word in this term is “Virtuality”.
By definition: Virtual: Existing or resulting in essence or effect though NOT in actual fact, form, or name.
What’s being exchanged in real time through twitter and other social networking channels is anything but “virtual”. It’s real. It IS in actual fact.
I don’t think it’s right to indiscriminately equate on-line with virtual and off-line with real.
Twitter is a form of communication, enhancing real, yet non-physical interactions between humans, like any other form of communication (mail, telephone, SMS, email, Facebook and its ilk).
I can’t say that there is anything “virtual” about the scenarios described above, so therefore by error of definition, Twitter is NOT a form of augmented virtuality.
Augmented reality? It’s not making reality any more “real”.
Twitter is a form of communication.