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A feature of telemetry processes for spacecraft and particle physics called time-tagging can benefit the future of Internet socialization if applied in the right ways. In the above applications, time-tagging is used to annotate a point in the timeline for a stream of data, where the annotation includes both a recognizable time signature that is linked to a reference-able point in three dimensional space. A geo-temporal annotation.

If we consider how humans have moved from discussions that occur in a typically limited geo-location in the off-line world (excepting global travel for arguments sake,) to a far ranging virtual world discussion basis (blog, forums, chats, SecondLife,) one can note the loss of certain aspects of inter-personal reference points. One loss is obviously the inability to see facial and body expressions, unless interactions occur on-camera or with avatars. Even these on-camera interactions are still very primitive in regards to reading facial expression. Another loss is the absence of a physical reference point, both in time as well as geo-location. Of course we always know where we are in the present, but there are many needs for access to historical as well as future looking time-tags associated with our online discussions and conversations.

When we discourse online, the participants in an interaction are often anonymous in the sense of physical geo-location, but the discussion is also bereft of a past/present/future, time/date stamp. Nor is the missing time-stamp correlated to the non-existent geo-tag. Nor is the distributed discussion geo-tagged by topic-of-discussion.” So as we converse online we are lacking certain clues, a few of the primary characteristics of human communication, which help us make informed decisions regarding participation in an ongoing dialog.

These images represent the geo-temporal concept as applied to RFID device tracking.
(Image Source)

If we were to enable a tagging or ping type system where every appropriate element of online interaction was annotated with Temporal related information and also assigned a geo-value, many additional possibilities would then exist for creating a richer and more humanistic online experience.

I saw a note about Atten.tv today and was interested to note that they plan to let you:

As you spend more time online, your clickstream (the record of where you visit online) increasingly represents who you are and what you are interested in. AttenTV turns one person’s or group’s clickstream data into another person’s entertainment. Watch what others are watching. See who is watching you. Influential individuals. Voyeuristic groups.

Today it was also revealed that Google plans to launch “Web History” so that registered Google Account holders can examine not just their account history with Google, but their surfing history.

Both of these examples showcase how we in the Internet industry are striving towards the next level of interaction online, where we will not only be tied together by content and discussion thread aggregation, but also through geo-temporal and geo-location user experiences.

As we tie ourselves together with open API’s we will need something like tags or post-pings to embed the geo-location and geo-temporal meta data to enable more lifelike interactions.

YOU, THEM, TOPIC, PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE, DELIVERY TYPE, MICRO-CROWD ID, …

Justin.tv has archives of their shows that are searchable by time-tag, but does not yet provide the geo-tagging which would enhance the visitor experience for both the casual voyeur as well as the subjects own narcissistic impulses.

RESOURCES
This is a great post to read more about this topic http://blogs.open.ac.uk/Maths/ajh59/010163.html “visual interface using historical and/or spatial context”

See couch surfing http://www.couchsurfing.com/ for geo-tagging based interaction

Timeline widget AJAX

http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/

Other reading:
Time-tagging
Podcast time-tagging