4streams: an ambient photo sharing application for extended families

In this paper we describe a novel photo sharing system called 4streams. This is an ambient photo display that allows a small group of users to keep in touch through a kind of visual twitter feed of concurrent photographs from their mobile phones. The photographs of up to four users are displayed in a dynamic collage in the four quadrants of a dedicated ambient display, with photographs to each quadrant arriving in real time as photographs are taken/uploaded. Historical photos can also be browsed or played back in lock-step with each other, as a reminder of what each member of the group was doing over the same period of time. The system was trailed over seven weeks by an extended family distributed over three countries. The findings suggest that the system increases the social connection and presence between children, parents and grandparents of an intergenerational family living apart. This was not only through 'visual status' images of family members living in different places, but also through updates of collocated members travelling away from home, and deliberately crafted images designed to elicit responses or trigger discussions in other media. The implications of these findings for theories of photo sharing are discussed.