'Taking the Chance out of chance encounters'

[matty]

http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg21228403.300

 

I say creepy, it's too weird, imo.--You?

[swansont]

Creepy, but the current teen/twentysomething generation has a different concept of privacy than someone who didn't grow up with cell phones and digital music, and has used carbon paper and a manual typewriter.

[TonyMcC]

It's just another step along the way of targeted advertising. I believe, for instance, that Google stores your entries and targets you with adverts on that basis. They will have a problem with me as if I'm unsure of a spelling a particular word I google it to check the spelling! By the way, I'm well past twenty something and not really worried about this, lol. Just a thought - one day soon I might be out walking and a message on my phone might inform me that there is an undertaker around the corner where I could arrange a pre-paid funeral!

[Brainteaserfan]

Yes, that's a little weird. Isn't it funny though, that likely you will find something in common with almost anyone you just start a conversation with, yet people are surprisingly hesitant to start talking with strangers, even when neither party is doing much else, like on a train? Yet, if your iPhone told you that you shared something with a random nearby person (according to what that assumes), you would just go and talk with them. Odd.

 

Also, I assume almost nobody who has any degree of fame would want to sign up. For instance, many like myself would like to see all the people near me who are good at chess, say, maybe all grandmasters. I would think that that would create many more people either bothering or watching them. So, many people (who usually would be able to pull more people into some sort of social network) would not join and would hinder the progress of such a design (because many of those who would usually join a social network with them wouldn't join). Thus I doubt that such a thing will become widely popular for quite a while yet. We'll see!

Edited November 27, 2011 by Brainteaserfan

[Greippi]

Sometimes chance encounters work because of the magic of the CHANCE part of the encounter. This will just take the fun out of everything.

[matty]

Creepy, but the current teen/twentysomething generation has a different concept of privacy than someone who didn't grow up with cell phones and digital music, and has used carbon paper and a manual typewriter.

 

Carbon paper and a manual typewriter, yes, does that ever hit home. I liked carbon paper:(, you could use it to trace stuff.

 

You're right, I often think of that, the issue of an inclination toward privacy at all when I see this upcoming generation plaster seemingly everything about their emotional wellbeing--or not-- on facebook, for example. How strange even so many adults would give explicit, everyday account of their familial upheavals there.

 

 

It's just another step along the way of targeted advertising. I believe, for instance, that Google stores your entries and targets you with adverts on that basis. They will have a problem with me as if I'm unsure of a spelling a particular word I google it to check the spelling! By the way, I'm well past twenty something and not really worried about this, lol. Just a thought - one day soon I might be out walking and a message on my phone might inform me that there is an undertaker around the corner where I could arrange a pre-paid funeral!

 

Yeah, targeted advertising is a thing of many years back now, to my knowledge, some of it intrusively, questionably so imo.

 

Yes, that's a little weird. Isn't it funny though, that likely you will find something in common with almost anyone you just start a conversation with, yet people are surprisingly hesitant to start talking with strangers, even when neither party is doing much else, like on a train? Yet, if your iPhone told you that you shared something with a random nearby person (according to what that assumes), you would just go and talk with them. Odd.

 

Also, I assume almost nobody who has any degree of fame would want to sign up. For instance, many like myself would like to see all the people near me who are good at chess, say, maybe all grandmasters. I would think that that would create many more people either bothering or watching them. So, many people (who usually would be able to pull more people into some sort of social network) would not join and would hinder the progress of such a design (because many of those who would usually join a social network with them wouldn't join). Thus I doubt that such a thing will become widely popular for quite a while yet. We'll see!

 

That's my thinking, yes, not funny, but, rather, sad, people should have greater difficulty in the approach sitting across from each other on a subway than in a forum online. But there again, everything may lie in the subjective of the generational gap and upbringing. Still, I tend to reserve my bias comfort, ease in the up close and personal--real time contact--always trumps whatever so called progress may bring, we're talking about human contact, connection, interaction and everything that is either good or bad bred therein. I can't help, then, but find it at its finest in its purest form; face to face, a beautiful thing.--I like chess, face to face, it's twice as good. I've played a lot of cards in my day, it can't be compared to in cyberspace, I'm sorry, just the way it is.

 

 

Sometimes chance encounters work because of the magic of the CHANCE part of the encounter. This will just take the fun out of everything.

 

And there you have it.

[pantheory]

Interesting. The more reliable info that is put into it, probably based upon prompted questions, the more likely will be the validity of the output/ suggestions/ info etc.

 

I expect we will see such "smart-suggestion pods" in less than 10 years. The many advertisers for such systems seemingly could help the manufacturers defray the costs of the devices, probably making them relatively inexpensive to the many that might be interested. Along with special devices I would expect software providers to also offer such programs to be used with PC's.

Edited December 2, 2011 by pantheory

[Moontanman]

Think of the possibilities of pr0n sites using this, your phone buzzes and tells you just around the corner is a beautiful young woman desperate to hook up with you but you get there and there is another buzz telling you some even better looking girl is just a short walk away and you go to that place and ... yes another buzz from your phone directing you someplace else.... get some exercise anyway....

[pantheory]

Think of the possibilities of pr0n sites using this, your phone buzzes and tells you just around the corner is a beautiful young woman desperate to hook up with you but you get there and there is another buzz telling you some even better looking girl is just a short walk away and you go to that place and ... yes another buzz from your phone directing you someplace else.... get some exercise anyway....

Maybe the message would go something like this: there's a great looking young woman just a couple of blocks away whereby you seem to match her desired-partner profile, but be quick about it since this same message has also been sent to 11 other users in the same vicinity in the last 5 minutes But take heart, 7 of the 11 are also females.

Edited December 5, 2011 by pantheory

[Daedalus]

Think of the possibilities of pr0n sites using this, your phone buzzes and tells you just around the corner is a beautiful young woman desperate to hook up with you but you get there and there is another buzz telling you some even better looking girl is just a short walk away and you go to that place and ... yes another buzz from your phone directing you someplace else.... get some exercise anyway....

 

Each buzz only costs you $10.99

[matty]

It did have some real comic potential, especially with the scenario reversed, without anything offered first in the area of physical attributes.

Edited December 6, 2011 by matty