REACH : the local social favor exchange : a proximal messaging system

Abstract

We define proximal messaging as that category of information transaction that takes into account the physical, social and temporal proximity between the sender and recipient as it relates to the content of the message. We undertake an analysis of the social factors powering the widespread adoption of social, locative and collaborative systems and assert that their evolution is driven by natural human communication instincts that tend towards increasingly personal and real world interactions. We go on to present Reach, a proximal messaging system realized as a local social favor exchange that leverages users' existing social and mobility network activity to match them with people they can help and who can help them. In prototyping this system we explore how best to work with these dimensions of articulated real-time personal information and validate our work by conducting a user study on the experience of requesting favors and being called to serve by Reach.