2022/Pop-ups/Analog Meets Online

 Analog Meets Online  was an IndieWebCamp Pop-ups 2022 session.

How do the fun and potential of our personal websites, and the connection of online community, extend into our offline lives and spaces? How are people playing with the boundaries of virtual and offline life? How can websites enhance physical places, things and events?

Let's share our analog-virtual projects and ideas (and examples you've seen), explore what excites us about the future, discuss how online and in-person community and events interface and enhance each other, and reflect on bigger picture questions about the blending of these spheres in our lives and society.

 Topics discussed: 
 * Longevity of websites - printed websites
 * How to replicate unprogrammed live interactions online - status indicators
 * How we can safely and meaningfully interact online - expectations of different platforms
 * How to make pre-recorded events more useful - capturing context, transcription, commentary

Details

 * Date: January 22, 2022
 * Time: 9:30 - 11:30 AM Pacific | 12:30 - 2:30 PM Eastern | 17:30 - 19:30 GMT+1
 * RSVP:
 * Event page
 * Video:

Organizers
Organizers, facilitators, and volunteers
 * - organizer

Resources

 * Technology notes for those attending
 * IndieWeb Chat Room
 * Loqi - our friendly chat bot will allow people to ask questions in the chat channels and attempt to answer them
 * Etherpad: https://etherpad.indieweb.org/AnalogMeetsOnline-Popup (for real time chat, questions, and note taking during the session)
 * Note taking: https://indieweb.org/Etherpad#How_to_take_notes_during_IndieWebCamp
 * #hashtag: #AnalogMeetsOnline
 * Code of Conduct: This event is covered by the IndieWeb Code of Conduct. By participating, you're acknowledging your acceptance of this code.

Interest
Those who expressed interest in the session during planning:
 * would love to see this event, especially given his thermal printer projects (https://search.jamesg.blog/results?query=thermal%20printer) from earlier this year.
 * +1 - I'm hoping to eventually set up a "cockpit" display panel which uses LEDs, etc to show me the result of queries like "has created a post within last 2 days" and other possible metrics measured/generated by my site.
 * +1 - I've experienced working online communities as extensions or precursors to IRL events in the 2000s and I'd love if that would redevelop in this decade\
 * +1 - I'm always free. Except when I'm not.
 * +1
 * +1 The 2022-01-22 date works for me
 * +1 undefined love this idea and the topics mentioned! Will try to make whatever date is decided (would prefer to avoid weekends though if possible)
 * +1
 * ±1/0

Participants

 * Jacob Hall jacobhall.net
 * Angelo Gladding
 * Jacob Hall jacobhall.net
 * Angelo Gladding
 * Angelo Gladding
 * Angelo Gladding

Discussion
''' Why put things online in the first place? '''

is thinking about longevity. Paper form seems more durable. Has a printed version of his blog he ordered via a printing service.

Curation needed to print. estimated how long his unedited printed blog would be. omitted "check-in" style posts about when he drank a coffee.

What evidence do our websites leave that they exist?

Custom stylesheets for printing could be useful. Early versions of printed web pages were dreadful and not very dense. Format links to show URLs next to link text for print usefulness.

Collecting everything into one place. Saving and preserving our own lives. When writing for ourselves primarily, that makes internal search most valuable.

''' How can one create real-time experiences for people visiting the same page at the same time? What do those UIs look like? '''


 * Presence indicators to display one's availability
 * Slack indicates that another user is typing
 * Some chat applications have an ellipsis ... to indicate others' activity
 * has a green dot to indicate he's still at a particular location that he's been checked into

''' How can we interact online meaningfully and safely? '''

Zoom = going to a room for a purpose, is there a "purposeless" version of live video?

Selectivity in what we share, and where we share it. Sometimes sharing on silos feels more private than our website.
 * Instagram Stories are temporary, reveal viewership, no one links to them
 * Sharing beer notes on Untappd gives context whereas posting on website might make readers without that context draw wrong conclusions

How much information do we want from each other? Does too much information undermine meaning?

"Engineer serendipity" -

recalled historic example of using calling cards as a way to introduce yourself in a new city

''' What counts as analog? '''

Live video calls are totally distinct from pre-recorded events, let us see other people's faces as we're communicating.

 Adding value to asynchronous events / pre-recorded live events 

Most of the value in a live event comes from being present. Recording a sports game to watch later loses some of the excitement and purpose.

Can you turn on real-time commentary overlay of things you're watching? E.g. VH1 used to show tidbits of trivia over music videos.
 * Audio overlay time-matched to video?
 * Pull in tweets or chat time-matched to video?
 * Subtitle file with commentary?

How to maintain meaning after the fact? How to recreate contextual cues?

How can we enhance live online events?
 * Can we collaboratively create with an audience, let the audience influence the outcome or process?
 * Shared experience e.g. "first sip" videos for coffee tasting reviews
 * Real-time voting

Ideas

 * IndieWeb long-term / paper archiving project?
 * Homebrew Website Club - record for the purpose of getting automatic transcription?
 * Write bullet points of topics discussed / highlights covered in HWC, include in "This Week in the IndieWeb"
 * Indicate status (in h-card?), available hours, attendance in upcoming events to encourage connection
 * IndieWeb project: annotate the same short clip to test functionality

Project Examples
 IndieWeb Examples 
 * thermal printer projects - https://jamesg.blog/category/thermal-printer-series/
 * OCR handwriting to post - https://boffosocko.com/2021/12/20/55799844/

 Other Examples 
 * Person who "sold stock" in their personal life and allowed shareholders to vote on their activities, etc.

Project Ideas

 * wants to make a "cockpit" display panel which uses LEDs
 * wants to explore new ways to publish his status (i.e. an event he is at) on his blog. This could be done with a regular note that has some kind of special border / is pinned to a page.

Pre-Planning
 Possible Discussion Questions 
 * How do the fun and potential of our personal websites extend into our offline lives and spaces? What do we want to pull from online into our offline world? What aspect of our offline lives do we want to add an online element?
 * How are people playing with the boundaries of virtual and offline life?
 * How can websites enhance physical places, things and events?
 * What aspects of your life, if any, do you prefer to keep totally separate from the Internet / your website?
 * What would a non-dystopian cyberpunk / augmented reality world or metaverse look like or do?
 * How can we promote working online communities as extensions or precursors to IRL events?
 * How does online community extend into our offline lives, and how is it different from primarily offline community?
 * How can we post in real-time during life without interrupting the richer experience of real life?

Posts
Did you write or post about this session? Add your post below:
 * https://tracydurnell.com/2022/01/22/analog-meets-online-session-thoughts/

Photos
Photographs from this session. See photography policy