I’ve been using Plazes for nearly a year and never had anyone I didn’t know show up where I was at. Until I stopped in the old Aula space (nowadays called Café Java) here in Helsinki to access the free wifi, and noticed a user named Bronek was there too. Curious, I checked his blog. As he was writing about interesting stuff, I emailed him just to say hello. Five minutes later the fellow sitting at the table next to me turned around and introduced himself as Bronek. We both thought it was a pretty geeky (in the fun sense!) way to meet.

Meeting Bronek reminded me about the logical step of integrating place information to IM. This would turn IM into a tool for initiating spontaneous face-to-face encounters. It would be in line with the quest for ‘enhanced social peripheral vision’ that IM is all about.

So, for a start, how about adding a Place list to iChat? It would display my favourite hangouts, and list the users who are currently logged in at those places (to manage privacy, there could be a menu: ‘make my location public’ / ‘allow only buddies to see my location’ / ‘keep my location private’). When I notice a person I don’t know at place where I regularly go, I’d like to be able to pull up their blog by right-clicking on their name. It could look something like this:

Further down the road, with a bit of RSS integration it’d be nice to glance at other online users’ public feeds (to see their latest bookmarks, blogroll, readings, music, etc.)

Similarly, it’d be nice to access/edit a map, tags, and other annotations by clicking on the place.

Here’s a follow-up to my earlier post on complimenting weblog comments with lighter ‘gestures’: while at it, I made another mock-up. It’s a panel that offers post-specific interactions: ratings, del.icio.us bookmarking, quick feedback smileys, and the ‘send related link’ function.

When I browse weblogs, I would often like to be able to do one or both of the following two things quickly: 1) send rapid ‘gut reaction’ feedback (for instance a smiley) to the author, mostly to thank people for taking the time to write something I liked; and 2) offer a URL that points to something which I think relates to the topic. These reactions aren’t really comments; they are more like gestures that would let the author know that there are readers out there who appreciate the stuff even if they aren’t posting comments. Another reason why I think it’d be worthwhile to investigate ‘gestures’ is that weblogs and comments are literary formats which require a certain level of competence to author, and this makes it hard for those of us who haven’t developed a routine for this mode of expression (especially non-native English speakers) to participate in the blogosphere.
Here’s an attempt to illustrate what I mean, as a right-click menu photoshopped over the NetNewsWire UI.