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#7483 Broadcast Café

This café is wired. There are cameras and microphones everywhere. What goes on inside is constantly broadcast in real-time on the café's website. There is a bold disclaimer on the front door telling everyone who enters that their conversation and image will be viewable by anyone accessing the site. It is open from 6am to 2am the next morning to maximize global viewing time, without becoming too seedy. It is located in New York or LA or maybe both.

Another option: At the same time, monitors in the cafe show analytics in real time of how many people are on the website and where they are located. Maybe it even shows how many people are watching each camera and listening to each microphone. Perhaps people on-line could post chats and be active participants as well.

Would no one want to go to a café where their privacy is completely nil? Would no one want to sit at their computer and watch people living instead of doing it themselves? Or do people have an inner desire to be seen, especially on the screen (especially if it were in LA)? Or are people intrigued with the details of other people's lives (imagine a similar café in Paris)? Would people gradually forget they were on camera (the cameras and mics would be inconspicuous) and start talking like they would in any café? Would the on-line and off-line worlds become so intertwined that people would enter the café and actually be absorbed into the internet and vice versa?

Comments

Anonymous said…
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佳順 said…
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a Tom said…
I must say I've enjoyed the last two spam comments on this post. I've removed them since they have links to web sites on the other side of the tracks, but this is what they said:

#1 Good blog and good friends should share - thanks for sharing

#2 Drive carefully. It is not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker

At least Chinese spammers are nice.
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