Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

1. Utterli
2. First Mile Solution
3. Ushaidi - Creation story 1, creation story 2
4. BulkSMS - Creation story
5. InSTEDD - Creation story
6. Dial2Do
7. New York Talk Exchange (NYTE) - creation story
8. Snapvine
9. Jyngle
10. tatango
11. kirusa
12. ccube
13. jajah
14. Common Craft Explanations in Plain English - creation story in pictures
15. MyGADs
16. Phonevite
17. FreeConference
18. RadioActive
19. Telephone Trottorie
20. SayNow
21. TXTML

I met with DT faculty member Dave Carroll to go over my work for Pigeon.  We talked things technical, business, and academic.

Technical:

• Asterisk came up again
• He thought TXTML may be a good prototyping tool for SMS sign up, especially if it could be connected to my current Voxeo prototyping.  SMSs could be handled through some type of IMAP processing.

Business:

• If ad based, the ads could be contextual.  (As creepy as it sounds) messages could be decoded, and if someone mentions the Eifel tower an ad for France travel packages could play or be generated from a google ad words ad.
• Again the idea of some customers paying to support others came up.  I thought that perhaps at sign up users could sign up for a free account or a paying account which will support free acounts (similar to the Radiohead album sales and Good magazine’s newest subscription sign ups).
• Paying customers could perhaps get general or specific information about how their contribution is supporting users who can’t afford (e.g. “Your contribution this month has allowed 42 pigeons to be delivered”).

Academic

• New York Talk Exchange: the book - for statiscal data and essays on how international phone traffic is used by the extremes of the economic ladder.
• Mobile Persuasion - ed. B.J. Fogg
• Mobile Interaction Design - Matt Jones and Gary Marsden - good case studies in evaluating effectiveness of systems
• Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics

Dave thought that the best case scenario would be to have a working alpha by the end of this semester and a working beta by the end of next semester (”with 5000 users”).

My fellow DTer Erik Burke is in the New York Times for a mural he did in Bushwick!

Pigeon could be used by US undergraduates studying abroad; here’s a storyboard exploring this idea as a user scenario:

More recently, I’ve been considering Pigeon for use in a developed context, and I think this has confused my work a bit.  This issue also came up in my crit.  In talking to Colleen, she said “if you design for the developing world, it could be useful for the developed, but if you design for the developed, it will probably not be useful for the developing.”  I’m really going to focus on developing areas moving forward.  Furthermore, I’m going to spend my next prototyping cycle exclusively considering how to communicate about Pigeon.  I’m going to develop other storyboards, other stories, and perhaps a short “commercial” explaining Pigeon.

I want future presentations of Pigeon to be much more narrative.  Any explinations of technical developments need to be embedded into a story about how this idea for a new system will impact people’s lives.

• a minute to leave a voice message telling your world what you’re up to
• a minute voice message telling your world what you’re up to
• one voice message to tell your world what you’re up to
• one voice message telling your world what you’re up to, in a minute or less
• one voice message for all your friends and family
• one voice message for one minute, connecting you to your world
• one voice message for one minute telling your world what you’re up to
• what you’re up to in a voice message
• tell your world what you’re up to: one minute, one voice message
• one voice message, one minute: tell your world what you’re up to

My midterm presentation (in pdf form with my presenter notes) explains my concept development to date and my prototypes carried out this semester.

The simple online presence of Pigeon now allows you to both sign up for the service and sign in if you are a member to add contacts and accept or decline contact requests.

Below is a kind of “script” for signing up for Pigeon and adding contacts via SMS.

If first words sign up or signup (any variation of capitalization should be accepted):

1. Response text: What would you like your 9-digit Pigeon number to be?
2. [9-digit Pigeon number]
3. Response text: What would you like your 4-digit PIN to be? Your PIN will keep your account safe. - or - Response text: Oops! That Pigeon number is taken! What would you like your 9-digit Pigeon number to be?
4. [4-digit PIN]
5. Welcome to Pigeon! Your Pigeon number is XXX-XXX-XXX. Call 713 574-9488 to make contacts and record your Pigeon message telling your world what you’re up to.

If first words sign up or signup (any variation of capitalization should be accepted) and then numbers:

1. sign up [9-digit pigeon number] [4-digit PIN]
2. Response text: Welcome to Pigeon! Your - or - Response text: Oops! That Pigeon number is taken! Please text your sign up again with another number.
3. Welcome to Pigeon! Your Pigeon number is XXX-XXX-XXX. Call 713 574-9488 to make contacts and record your Pigeon message telling your world what you’re up to.

If first word add or addcontact or add contact or addcontacts or addcontacts (maybe addquick?):

1. add [your Pigeon number] [your PIN]. [others Pigeon number]
2. [Pigeon numbers] will be asked to add you as a contact when they next log on.

Or:

1. add (or other version) [your Pigeon number] [your PIN]
2. Response text: Text back all Pigeon numbers you would like to add as contacts.
3. [Pigeon numbers] will be asked to add you as a contact when they next log on.

I’m going to test these by just having people text my phone and signing them up myself.  I’ll use the online dialog for quickly signing them up.  I wonder if there will be any trepidation in sending the PIN number in a way that is not secure.

I’ve created a simple implementation prototype of Pigeon online sign up.  The script currently does not completely validate the form values.  It checks if a member number exists, but doesn’t check if a 9-digit Pigeon number is given and a 4-digit PIN is given.

Both online and SMS sign up don’t allow you to record your Pigeon name, so the phone system will need to prompt you to record it at log-in.  Currently, if there is no Pigeon name recorded on contact playback the system will fail.  This needs to be corrected. (Edit 7 Oct 11:36am) You are now prompted to record your Pigeon name at login if it doesn’t exist.

I want to explore other methods of web and mobile sign up to and distribution of Pigeon.  I imagine the Pigeon web site interaction consisting of a main page for logging in or signing up, a page with a little more information about the system, and a logged in page where contacts could be added and you could listen to your messages.  Also online, content could be delivered to other places such as Facebook or Google Chat away messages.

Wireframes of: home page, logged in page.

One day in class when discussing sign up, Colleen through out the idea that maybe someone would go around communities setting up temporary kiosks for signing up and making contacts or perhaps that an operator could exist which would set these things up for you.  Either situation, at some level, could be mediated through this web interface.  Would these types of activities be carried out by Pigeon proper or could they be small, side businesses by local entrepreneurs?