I thought the following article was quite interesting.

Connie Skeen

>Hello All,
>    Here is an interesting account of the next step in Instant Messaging.
>The influence of this sort of technology will likely be more profound in
>re-shaping the social world than Television.  Never out of touch used to be
>a slogan to sell phone service.  Now the literal connection to the world
>takes a major leap forward.
>thanks,
>Doyle
>
>February 7, 2002
>You Can Surf, but You Can't Hide
>By LISA GUERNSEY, New York Times staff
>
>TAKING a phone call has always been a game of chance. You never know whether
>the person you are calling is available. You just punch in the numbers and
>hope to get lucky.
>
>Imagine being able to learn without dialing a single digit whether another
>person's phone is in use, or in the case of a cellphone, whether it is even
>turned on. Now imagine being able to do the same thing with any wired or
>wireless device of the future - whether it is in the car, in an airplane or
>at the gym. Not only could you learn whether a person is available for a
>chat, but you could also deduce what that person might be doing at that
>exact moment, all without exchanging a word.
>
>That is the idea behind a programming concept called presence awareness,
>which is based on the realization that appliances on a network can
>automatically be detected by other devices.
>
>"The days of phone tag are on the way out," said Sonu Aggarwal, chief
>executive of Cordant, a company in Bellevue, Wash., that develops
>instant-messaging technology. "This is a very powerful concept with long-
>term implications."
>
>Many software developers predict that presence technology will become almost
>as ubiquitous as communication devices themselves. In six months, Motorola
>(news/quote) officials say, the company will roll out a system that will
>allow a caller to tell whether another person's mobile phone is on and
>whether it is in use. Nokia (news/quote) and Ericsson (news/quote), among
>several other telecommunications companies, are also developing the
>technology, for use in either land-line or wireless phones.
>
>Presence technology is also being considered for hand-held computers,
>wireless Web pads, communications systems in cars, and even exercise
>machines that provide Internet access at the gym. Some systems, the
>officials say, will go as far as using tracking systems like the Global
>Positioning System, or G.P.S., to detect the location of a person who is
>logged in.
>
>The prospect of information that can reveal a person's availability at a
>given moment, anywhere in the world strikes many people as both creepy and
>intriguing.
>
>Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, an assistant professor at New York University who
>conducts research on Internet relationships, has found that people are
>comforted when they can see the distant movements of people from their inner
>circles, like family and friends. Devices that use presence technology could
>provide such reassurance.
>
>"You could see that you could instantaneously reach these people if you need
>them," Dr. McKenna said. "I know my mother would be extremely reassured if
>she could see, `Oh, she's off the plane; her cellphone came on; she's
>landed.' "
>
>But along with comfort comes the unnerving feeling of being watched, a
>lesson that has been experienced by millions of instant messaging users. By
>keeping track of the activity on their Buddy Lists, people with I.M. can use
>log-in information to get a sense of their buddies' routines - when they
>arrive at work, when they are online at home on a weekend, or in some cases
>how long they have been away from their computers. Information that was
>private (or at least not easy to acquire) can become known - with little
>effort - by employers, co-workers, friends, family members and, sometimes,
>by strangers.
>
>"When you have these technologies you really expose yourself and your day to
>a lot of people," said Bonnie A. Nardi, an anthropologist at Agilent
>Technologies (news/quote), a company in Palo Alto, Calif., that makes
>high-tech monitoring devices.
>
>After spending a few years studying instant messaging, Dr. Nardi said she
>became aware of the subtle impact of presence technology on people's lives.
>It is time, she said, to think about "what we want people to know about what
>we are doing at a given moment."
>
>Software programmers and executives have begun talking about how to
>capitalize on presence technology's potential. For example, at Dynamicsoft,
>a company in East Hanover, N.J., officials have discussed how presence
>software, wireless hand-held computers and G.P.S. tracking could alert a
>person when a friend happened to be a few blocks away. A phone-based system
>could also automatically plug in teleconference participants the instant
>everyone in the group was available.
>
>In the future, Mr. Aggarwal of Cordant said, technology might be so
>integrated that a traveler could wear a wireless badge that interacts with a
>computer on the back of an airplane seat. When the computer sensed that the
>traveler was seated, it could automatically redirect messages to the
>computer's screen or send word to the traveler's contacts that he was on
>board.
>
>The only widely available version of the technology currently in use is
>instant messaging. If I.M.'s popularity is any indication, people may be
>ready to embrace the possibilities of presence detection.
>
>More than 50 million people in the United States use instant-messaging
>products today, according to industry estimates, and many of those people
>say that their favorite aspect of the technology is the ability to see
>whether a buddy is online.
>
>Still, even some of the technology's adherents acknowledge how strange it is
>to remotely broadcast their whereabouts. Mr. Aggarwal uses MSN Messenger,
>which displays a clock icon in the contact list to indicate when a person
>has not touched the keyboard or mouse for, say, five minutes. As soon as he
>resumes use of his keyboard or mouse, the clock goes away. Often, he said,
>he gets a phone calls the minute he hits the keys, and the caller is
>invariably someone who had been waiting for that icon to disappear.
>
>"Without my being aware, people are watching me," Mr. Aggarwal said.
>
>Hints of a coming struggle between privacy and openness turned up in a
>recent project at Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent
>Technologies (news/quote). In the project, which was called Rear View
>Mirror, a scientist, Dr. James Herbsleb, and several colleagues studied a
>group of Lucent employees in American and European offices who used a Bell
>Labs instant messaging system for more than a year. Privacy issues arose
>from the start.
>
>"Some people in Germany said, `This looks like a surveillance tool for us,'
>" Dr. Herbsleb said.
>
>He added that they did not like the idea that supervisors could detect - and
>therefore monitor - exactly how long they had been online and how much time
>they had spent typing on their keyboards.
>
>As a result, Bell Labs researchers altered the software to give users
>complete control. The program's default options were set to make users
>appear to be offline. If people wanted co-workers to know they had logged
>in, they had to turn on the feature that displayed their availability.
>
>That solution did not work very well, Dr. Herbsleb said. The software, which
>was intended to avoid problems like phone tag, was useless if people had to
>badger colleagues to announce their availability. Besides, he said, it
>missed the point of presence technology, which is useful precisely because
>it senses what is going on without any action by a user.
>
>Ultimately, the researchers and employees compromised. The presence system
>was automatically turned on for people within small work groups. People
>outside those groups had to get colleagues' permission to watch their
>movements. "Don't allow people to just lurk and spy," Dr. Herbsleb said.
>
>But as staying in touch electronically becomes the mark of modern movers and
>shakers, many people say they will gladly allow their presence to be known
>in exchange for the convenience of constant contact. "It's sort of like
>leaving the front door open, and saying, `Come on in; don't even knock,' "
>said David Wertheimer, who writes a daily Web log called Netwert and is an
>avid user of instant messaging software.
>
>Software developers say they can design presence awareness systems to
>accommodate both those who seek privacy and those who want constant contact.
>Yahoo (news/quote) and Microsoft (news/quote), for example, include privacy
>features in their instant messaging products. Users must grant permission
>before their names can be added to someone's contact list. Instant
>Messenger, both the stand-alone version and the one embedded in AOL's
>Internet service, does not allow that level of control. Users have no way of
>knowing whether someone has added their screen names to a buddy list.
>
>Michele Magazine, a publishing consultant in Manhattan who briefly used the
>Instant Messenger program from America Online, said she was troubled by the
>lack of privacy. "I don't want people to know when I'm at home," she said.
>"There was no way to hide."
>
>Whether people will use permission features or other blocking tools is
>another question. Social pressure can be a powerful disincentive. Some
>teenagers who use instant messaging programs, for example, said they would
>not block their peers because they would not want to seem rude.
>
>Consider something like the following alert showing up on your screen: "Bill
>wants to put you on his buddy list. Do you accept?" If Bill is merely a
>distant acquaintance, and you decline, will it look like a snub? Suppose
>your girlfriend can tell that you are in your office, using your computer
>but not your phone. If she decides to call and you don't answer, she may
>think: "Why not? Clearly you are available. Are you ignoring me?"
>
>The Internet Engineering Task Force, the group that develops standards for
>Internet communication, has been thinking about several such implications,
>according to the engineers involved. One of them is Jonathan Rosenberg,
>chief scientist for Dynamicsoft and a co-author of the task force's
>standards for presence and instant messaging technology.
>
>Dr. Rosenberg has come up with an answer for the social dilemma of managing
>privacy without appearing rude. His idea is appropriately called polite
>blocking, and it works something like a little white lie. Users could appear
>to be busy with phone calls when, in fact, they might be blissfully enjoying
>a few minutes of solitude.
>
>There is another alternative, of course: People could extricate themselves
>from the technology often enough to keep their contacts guessing. A contact
>may determine that someone's mobile phone is on - and it very well may be,
>but it may also be sitting at home.
>
>"Until we get to the bioimplant," said Craig Peddie, who works on presence
>technology at Motorola, "we won't be able to know that you really have it
>with you."


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