Abstract:

Arranging a social meeting often involves collaborative consideration of events, locations and time. In field studies we observed that would-be socializers often use multiple online resources to search for places to meet, and many channels to communicate ideas about where/when to meet and about possible events to attend. People exchange URLs to websites, descriptions and comments, and routinely send links to online maps. MapChat is a prototype that assists this kind of rendez-vous planning by foregrounding the spatial and locational aspects of planning an event. An experimental prototype mashup application, MapChat brings Yahoo! Instant Messaging contacts to a scrollable, interactive Yahoo! Map. It allows people to search the Yahoo! Local database, visualize results, then comment and chat about them. People can chat in real-time or maintain a private conversation with friends over time. MapChat transforms online maps into shared digital environments for place/location exploration and rendezvous negotiation.