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| Popularity Dialer | ||
|---|---|---|
| Author(s): | Jenny Chowdhury |  |
| Instructor: | O'Sullivan, Dan | |
| Class: | Networked Expression | |
| Documents: |
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| Documents: | (JPEG) | |
| Keywords: | phone, social software, networked expressions | |
| The popularity dialer allows a user to exploit technology to alter their "presentation of self". | ||
| Have you ever been in a situation where you wish your cell phone would ring? Maybe you wanted to look extra important or popular on that hot date. Or maybe you just needed an excuse to escape from an unpleasant meeting. With “The Popularity Dialer”, you can plan ahead. Via a web interface, you can choose to have your phone called at a particular time (or several times). At the elected time, your phone will be dialed from my computer, which is attached to a phlink phone box, and you will hear a prerecorded message that’s one half of a conversation. Thus, you will be prompted to have a fake conversation and will easily fool those around you. | ||
| Background: | The idea for the project came from a passage of “The Presentation of Self” by Erving Goffman: “Since a girl’s dormitory mates will glean evidence of her popularity from the calls she receives on the phone, we can suspect that some girls will arrange for calls to be made.” People already use web technology to manipulate their presentation of self online. On sites like Friendster, users often display pictures of themselves that bare no resemblance to what they actually look like, they write content that makes themselves appear a particular way and they “collect” other users to their friend network as if it’s some type of currency. Likewise, the popularity dialer allows a user to exploit technology to alter the presentation of their persona. However, the manipulation/deception occurs in real-time. | |
| Audience: | people aged 8-108. | |
| Technical System Description: | The setup consists of a html webpage which uses a perl script to process the entered user information. The perl script hands the user data off to an applescript which controls the Phlink phonebox and allows the computer to dial out. | |
| Project References, Research and Literature: | Cory Forsyth - provided perl and applescript support/information Dedi Hubbard - provided perl and applescript support/information Shawn Van Every - provided Ovolab/Phlink information | |