CoCollage

CoCollage is a situated social computing application designed to cultivate community in cafés and other "third places" by bringing the richness of online social software into physical community space. The system shows photos and quotes uploaded to a web site by patrons and staff on a large computer display in the café, providing a new channel for awareness, interactions and relationships among consequential strangers and acquaintances.

CoCollage selects photos to show based on a combination of who is in the coffee shop and the popularity of the photos across all customers and staff. The system offers explicit “check-ins” using magnetic-striped loyalty cards, an “I’m here!” button on the CoCollage web site, or via an SMS message. Photos can come from users' Flickr or Facebook online photo albums, be uploaded directly via computer or submitted via email. Any customer or staff member can vote or post comments on photos via the web site, as well as flag any photos they deem objectionable. The system also incorporates capabilities for sending messages to the screen, to another user, or to a public “chatter” board on the site. Unfortunately, due to cost considerations, we did not use touch-screens, so the interaction was mostly via computers and mobile phones.

Our initial prototype was deployed at a coffeehouse in Seattle’s University District. A survey conducted four weeks after the deployment showed that 81% of customers believed that CoCollage increased the number of interactions and 95% believed it increase the sense of community in the coffee shop. In interviews with staff and customers, we discovered that most of the interactions sparked by CoCollage were between staff and customers, rather than among the customers (which had been our initial design goal). Based on the success of the initial prototype, we produced a second version and embarked on an expansion through which we partnered with over 20 other coffee shops and other third places (bars, restaurants, barbershops and bookstores) around Seattle. More information about the productization and proliferation can be found on the CoCollage home page.

Publications and Presentations

Supporting Community in Third Places with Situated Social Software
Joseph F. McCarthy, Shelly D. Farnham, Yogi Patel, Sameer Ahuja, William R. Hazlewood, Daniel Norman and Josh Lind
4th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2009), 25-27 June 2009, State College, PA
[Abstract] [Paper (PDF)] [Slides (@SlideShare)]

Ambient Informatics in Urban Cafés
Joseph F. McCarthy
Digital Cities 6 Workshop at the 4th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2009), 24 June 2009, State College, PA
[Abstract] [Paper (PDF)] [Slides (@SlideShare.net)]

Measuring the Impact of Third Place Attachment on the Adoption of a Place-based Community Technology
Shelly D. Farnham, Joseph F. McCarthy, Yagnesh Patel, Sameer Ahuja, Daniel Norman, William R. Hazlewood and Josh Lind
27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009), 4-9 April 2009, Boston, MA
[Abstract] [Paper (PDF)] [Slides (@SlideShare)]

The Community Collage at Trabant: a Proactive Display in a Cafe (blog post, 12 August 2008)

Coffee, Conversation, Community and Culture at Starbucks (blog post, 24 November 2009)