ABSTRACT
Location-aware mobile technologies interface 1 people’s relationships to public space by allowing individuals to retrieve place-specific digital information and connect to nearby people depending on their relative location in physical space. The devices’ awareness of physical location is accomplished via triangulation of radio waves, WiFi, or Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Whereas mobile phones were initially studied as technologies that helped people withdraw from their physical surroundings (Geser 2004, Gergen 2002, Puro 2002), it is now evident that one of the major characteristics of mobile (smart) phones is their ability to allow for diverse types of connections to local spaces and local people 2 (de Souza e Silva and Sutko 2009, Gordon and de Souza e Silva 2011, Humphreys 2007). For example, location-based social network (LBSN) software such as Foursquare and Brightkite allow users to visualize the physical location of their friends on their mobile phone screen (de Souza e Silva and Frith 2010a). Likewise, location-based advertising (LBA) can now deliver coupons whenever a user is within a certain distance of specific stores, and geotagging applications such as WikiMe and GeoGraffitti allow individuals to access and upload information that is place specific.
