Designing locative and social media technologies for community collaboration and social benefit : PetSearch

摘要

The convergence of locative and social media withudcollaborative interfaces and data visualisation hasudexpanded the potential of online information provision.udOffering new ways for communities to share contextuallyudspecific information, it presents the opportunity to expandudsocial media’s current focus on micro self-publishingudwith applications that support communities to activelyudaddress areas of local need. This paper details the designudand development of a prototype application that illustratesudthis potential. Entitled PetSearch, it was designed inudcollaboration with the Animal Welfare League ofudQueensland to support communities to map and locateudlost, found and injured pets, and to build communityudengagement in animal welfare issues. We argue that,udwhile established approaches to social and locative mediaudprovide a useful foundation for designing applications toudharness social capital, they must be re-envisaged if theyudare to effectively facilitate community collaboration. Weudconclude by arguing that the principles of userudengagement and co-operation employed in this projectudcan be extrapolated to other online approaches that aim toudfacilitate co-operative problem solving for social benefit.