Image space: an empirical study of geotagged mobile media content capture and sharing

In the past few years, there has been a rapid increase in the everyday usage of cameraphones and image sharing services. The existing services offer means to store, tag and share photos, but they offer only limited means to geotag and offer meaningful representations of the captured media content. We conducted a two-month field study of Image Space, an Internet-based service that allows people to automatically share and geotag photos (and sounds) onto 2D and 3D representations of photo collections online. In the study, we explored people's perception with regards to capturing and sharing geotagged mobile media content and whether geotagging increases the personal and social value of the photos. The study also looked into Scenes, which allow people to organize photos according to spatial and/or chronological associations. We report our findings based on three types of geotagged media content: photos, Scenes, and sounds. Our findings suggest that participants took photos of objects for self-documentation of their daily lives, of places to show to others what life is like where they live, and of people, which they used to reflect on overall aspects of privacy. Regarding the creation of Scenes, participants used them for storytelling, to save a journey, and to explore places by means of guided tours. Sounds were mainly used to support storytelling. Additionally, we report on novel practices with respect to the creation of Scenes, and photo capturing for Scenes, i.e., by taking photos and sounds from a moving vehicle.