[Sociam-soton] Re: Lifelogging apps - and stay tuned at WWDC on Monday

Sat May 31 23:43:27 BST 2014

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Hi Max,

many thanks for this broad update on the lifelogging/health app space.
Very interesting and also very valid points 1-3.

When reading this, I thought it might be worth considering to step
away from focusing on the technology side of things and also take a
look on the social. Technology-wise one can assume that the big
players will be able to offer the next fancy thing because they
develop the sensor and the app synchronously and they will also find a
customer because the world does not necessarily consists of the informed.

That does not mean that we should not follow the path with INDX to
offer a better and privacy-aware piece of technology, but beside that
we might be interested in other questions: Why is someone interested
in lifelogging for the price of privacy? I can say that I am not for
the reason of family life, which cuts down the time I sacrifice to be
spent with a smartphone in front of my face. Shall I be worried to
miss the chance of being healthier because I do not measure my status
in numbers and does this mean I should be depressed because I am
inferior to the rest of society doing this? This is just one
non-representative example of what may or may not motivate a user here
but I think it shows how interesting it may be for us (and maybe also
for the PDS industry out there) to understand "personal data personas".

Another question that comes up to me: What is the quality of personal
data? There is comprehensive research on data quality out there. Based
on empirical evidence created from interview studies with businesses.
I would assume personal data is completely different and a study with
individuals could be massively interesting. May it be that the
mediating technology messes up the quality due to the way data is
visualised or aggregated (think of these Nike fuel points here, they
might be worse in quality than measuring steps or they might be better
just because I feel better because earning points is something
positive)? And personal data appears in private but also professional
contexts. I also have a professional record of personal data, which
might be important for my CV. And I might have completely different
viewpoints on what quality may mean in these two dimensions of my life.

Again, many thanks for pitching a "Saturday night thought". I hope
this helps in some way.

Best,
Markus

On 31/05/2014 16:12, electronic Max wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Apologies for the Sat night email; as your health social machines 
> fellow, I wanted to share with you a quick update from the
> grapevine. Since Moves really got things kicking, there have been
> nearly a dozen new apps that offer similar functionality, with
> slightly more "interpretive bang" - things that people are likely
> to want to know
> 
> Professor Jill Walker Rettberg (my friend in Norway) is writing a
> book on it:
> 
> "Right now I'm permitting Facebook, Google, Apple and the
> lifelogging apps Saga, Chronos and Step Journal to track my every
> move in real time. When they've gathered data for a week they say
> they'll be able to tell me how to improve my life and serve me ads
> of course. And tell me if any of my equally tracked friends are
> nearby. It's fascinating, I need to see HOW they analyse/represent
> me for my book, and it's utterly nuts. I'm looking forwards to
> turning them all off in a week and a half...
> 
> OptimizeMe says it will show correlations like you're happier on
> days when you spend time with X or wake up earlier or later or
> drive more or less. But it doesn't constantly track you, you enter
> data yourself. Saga and Google Now says they will suggest things
> you would like based on what you've done. I'm not actually sure
> what else - the marketing is likely more impressive than the
> results but I'll stick with it for a week to see!"
> 
> Yet these apps are still disparate silos, all of which gather
> their own data into their own databases -   Some of them, like
> Saga, aggregates (like a PDS) all of your data into their servers
> from dozens of services including : BodyMedia, FitBit, Jawbone UP, 
> MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper, TripIt, Withings, DailyMile, Facebook,
> Foursquare, GoodReads, Google+, Instagram, Last.fm, MapMyFitness,
> MoodPanda, SocialCam, and Twitter in order to "tell your life
> story" in addition to running a data logger 24/7 on your iPhone or
> Android device.
> 
> Chronos has a very nice video [ http://vimeo.com/72234586 ] that 
> demonstrates that it's basically Moves + nice weekly analytics,
> like telling you how often (in the past X days, etc) you have
> visited somewhere new, and what days you have achieved certain
> goals (like going to bed before midnight - one that I personally
> never ever meet)
> 
> With this flood of apps coming out with very slick but "one trick" 
> functionality, it really makes me re-think our strategy for
> building 'next generation' health social machines.  That is, these
> social machines (iOS 8 included) are now 'current generation' -
> they're what the industry feels comfortable with building.  The
> industry still does not feel comfortable with 1) making users the
> their own data controllers  2) letting users supervise how their
> data is combined and shared  3) letting users build functionality
> themselves (except in a rudimentary way with IFTTT).
> 
> Anyway a few thoughts for your Sat nights,
> 
> Max _______________________________________________ Sociam-soton
> mailing list Sociam-soton at ecs.soton.ac.uk 
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/sociam-soton
> 

- -- 
- ------------------------------------------------
Dr. Markus Luczak-Rösch
Senior Research Fellow
Web and Internet Science Research Group (WAIS)
Electronics & Computer Science (ECS)
University of Southampton
email: M.Luczak-Rosch at soton.ac.uk
web: www.markus-luczak.de

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