Presence

See the related entry on Identity.

Definitions of Presence

Lombard and Ditton (1997) survey the literature and identify six definitions of presence:

1. social richness

2. realism

3. transportation

4. immersion

5. social actor within medium

6. medium as social actor (http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike/presence.htm#noteLombard%20and%20Ditton%201997)

Aspects of Presence

From Mike Gotta (shortened excerpt) at http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2006/11/presence_thinki.html

Presence & identity: At the core, presence is "you" but how many "you"'s are there?

Presence & location: Presence also touches upon where I am - my home office, on the road at a Starbucks, at a hotel, at a conference, etc. Location information is also important to consider when devising a strategy around presence.

Presence & environment: Somewhat related to location, presence could include insight to the environment around you - the capabilities and/or constraints of your computing environment (connectivity not good enough for video) as well as the form factor(s) you have at the moment (mobile device vs. a PC).

Presence & activity: Presence is influenced/impacted by the activity you are involved in as well as the activities of others. Certain activities preclude me from being available.

Presence & role: People wear many hats. There are default roles that might show up in a presence profile but perhaps not all possible permutations. There might be roles that are viewable through certain filters.

Presence & meta data: Presence can be assigned to artifacts. I might tag an artifact with meta-data that is resolved in real-time (e.g., author for a document, subject-matter expert) that might only display in a list of search results. Presence is attachable to any application element.

Presence & availability: Availability is a subjective thing - always, sometimes, never, to everyone, to someone, to no one. If I say no one do I not mean my wife or boss. Can I delegate availability?

Presence & Social Relatedness: Presence conveys a type of peripheral vision and social nearness (cognitively) that it is important to consider the "connectedness" implications of presence in terms of social networks and community.

Presence & attention: Both inward attention (managing access, interruptions) as well as outward attention (am I trying to get noticed, or to let someone know something, by setting my presence status to a certain state).

Presence & federation: Not just across various organizational boundaries but also across identity boundaries. Security (confidentiality, privacy) comes into play more prominently.

Presence of objects: presence of "things" as well as people so RFID is a type of presence. My presence can be inferred from objects near me or that I handle or wear (nTag).

Presence & agents/avatars: As technology progresses and we automate tasks via bots of various sorts, what type of presence do these "instances of me" have as they act as my proxy? Am I present in real-life when I am in Second Life?" (http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2006/11/presence_thinki.html)