Motorola anthropologists develop social TV

Some years ago, the researchers observed how people talked on the phone while watching the same TV show. Now Motorola-anthropologist Crysta Metcalf and her team are designing a Social TV, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The researchers designed a prototype and recruited friends of friends for the first phase of testing. “It looked like a PC attached to a television with a big microphone on a coffee table,” Metcalf says.

>> read the whole story

There are several publications by her and her team online, among others Ambient social tv: drawing people into a shared experience. There is also a pdf of a presentation at a conference by the Society of Applied Anthropology Investigating the Sharing Practices of Family & Friends to Inform Communication Technology Innovations

SEE ALSO:

Timo Veikkola - The Anthropologist as Future Specialist at Nokia

Why cellular life in Japan is so different - Interview with anthropologist Mizuko Ito

Kosher cell phones, kosher bus routes and kosher clothing: Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox economy

“The science of ethnography is an ideal tool to designing mobile phones”