In the search for market insights, Tim Plowm -ain d Davis Masten maintain that
the pathways to information should include PAs d11-hones, Webcams, global
positioning equipment, digital cameras, and a gwingnumber of other technologies.
Structured creatively for self-reporting, passive observation, and participant
observation, these media can yield facts businesses can analyze to shape individual
and strategic design decisions. The increasingly rapid migration of
technology across geographic and
socioeconomic boundaries is a fundamental
constituent of the titnes in
which we live. It is a process that takes
subtle and numerous forms. Parents
can check in on their kids at daycare
over the Internet by using X1O technology.
Russian teenagers organize roving
raves through globally oriented blogs.
American teens tise Pringle's potato
chip cans to enhance the range of their
wi-fi-enabled PCs and warchalk the
location (that is, mark on walls and
sidewalks to indicate wireless access
areas). Students everywhere are learning
to surreptitiously text-message each
other in class uising their cell phones.
With the ever-lower prices of chips,
disks, and memory, the continuing
broadband revolution, and the development
of new protocols, a new
domain for the elaboration of self and
culture has emerged, and it is worth
studying. There has been considerable
research on the social aspects of digital
communication, online consumption,
and the Web as a social phenomenon.
Social scientists, marketing professionals,
and product designers, however,
have paid less attention to the opportunities
presented by digital technology
for understanding the lives of users and
consumers