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September 25, 2003
MP3 jukebox mating
Inspired by Philip Greenspun's Weblog, a headcold, codeine, caffeine and paracetamol.
I always had the idea of something iPod like with wi-fi (or, in the future, faster wireless networking du jour) that would automatically suck files from others - especially those people/devices that it knew about - automatically, without asking. Not so much your own Personal Area Radio Station, as your own physical space lending library.
Close proximity will always have a bandwidth advantage, from network cables through to short distance wireless, to broadband to data telephony. Wi-fi is good enough now to let you copy 10s of albums whilst having a pint, and very soon video will be there to.
Sure, this idea needs a bevvy of new design - rating is just about there, recommendations not quite so, privacy and trust systems a few years out (predictably, I'd say link it to your mobile address book), autodiscovery and autonetworking pretty much usuable.
This is the reality that RIAA et al are moving towards. Push file sharing underground and we'll do it in ways you can't detect. We'll return to our sneakernets, copying at higher speeds than ever with our friends, our friends of friends, people we walk past in the street. It's not about downloading any more, it's about synching.
One stage further: enough people in the street use walkmans, iPods, portable CD players, but these are the hardcore, those that need music all day long. Imagine if they converted to this new wi-fi reality. For those that just want background music, you could built a more lightweight player, for those not really into music as much, that could download the song that others are listening to in the time it takes to walk past them, play it, delete it. Instant psychogeographical radio.
Sillier still: add a microphone and you could dedicate the track to them as they walk past. All technology comes down to dating in the end.
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