When online and physical worlds collide

25 September 2009

By Patrick Massey

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Liz and I gave a paper recently at the Market Research Society Conference in London on how we need to better understand the connections between emerging trends in both the physical world and the online worlds. A part of this was how virtual ethnography of online social media can help us understand how people express themselves differently depending on where they are; these virtual ethnographies are often most interesting when looking at the intersection of technology and culture.

Trying to align our methodology with culture, technology and the internet can get a bit dry so it was great to come across an example of how the virtual and physical collide to create something really fun. This video of hundreds of New Yorkers in Grand Central Station is brilliant viewing especially when we see those who are not part of the ‘experiment’.

This event (among many others) was organised by Improv Everywhere and they’ve just completed their sixth event. This quotation from the Improv Everywhere website gives you an idea of what it was like “A huge thanks to everyone who came out to The Mp3 Experiment Six today on Roosevelt Island! Our apologies to everyone who didn’t get an inflatable weapon. We bought 1,400 of them, but damn they went fast! I think it’s pretty safe to say there were around 2.3 jabillion people there.”

What they do really brings to life the often uneasy co-existence of the virtual and physical worlds. If I’d known about them before the conference we would have definitely built their story into the paper.

Brilliant.



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