Social Networks and Air Travel
I've spent far too much time waiting for planes, flying on planes, exiting planes, and what not. Tomorrow, I am back on the road again for a couple of days in San Francisco to catch BlogOn. The entire time, I've been thinking one thing: Where's the Network?
Let me explain the backdrop a bit. Air travel brings millions of people into close proximity on a daily basis. From the long lines to the waiting lounges and onto the planes themselves, people are placed into contact with many people that have never met before. For many, this entire process spans any number of hours, and even into extreme cases, days. It's always amazed me that there isn't more of an effort to get people to interact.
So where are the opportunities, if any? I think there are a few contexts that are worth considering:
Seating - Currently, we have very little control over where we are sitting. The basic class system of airline seating tends to separate in terms of wealth but fails to really deal with anything else. There's no "Kid's" section, for example.
What would be quite interesting, however, is the ability for people to aggregate based on a series of personal or professional preferences. Imagine indicating that you are interested in skiing, hiking, and rollerblading. Based on those preferences, seating is organically aggregated.
There are, naturally, lots of logistical and security issues with this approach. Despite all that, it seems like the trip would be so much more enjoyable being surrounded by people that I knew shared my interests.
Waiting Lounge - The Waiting Lounge is always packed with tons of people that are just twiddling their thumbs trying to kill time. For the more daring, they will branch out and start conversation. In past experiences, I've found most people are receptive to a little conversation and enjoy passing the time this way.
In-flight Experience - Riding for 8 hours in a cramped environment is ripe with issues, least of which are the social ones. But once you're past the physical obstacles, it's hard to pass the time if you can't sleep. I've flown a number of different airlines over the last few years and only recently has the experience improved. Technology is to thank. Here are just two of the great things I have seen:
Song Pop Quizzes - In February I was flying out to Las Vegas to attend a conference and celebrate my birthday. On that flight, we got to experience the new in-seat entertainment system Song was outfitting their planes with.
We found an extremely interesting game running. The game allowed the passengers to answer a variety of Pop quizzes. There was a running timer and the scoring was based on choosing the right answer in the fastest time possible. Interestingly enough, the game allowed passengers to select a member name, but it also identified their seat location.
This added an entirely new dimension to the flight. On one level, people were changing their names to reflect their personality, or the personality of the group they were with (my buddies and I were R2, D2, and C3PO -- our nicknames for each other. In addition, we also knew how we were doing and found ourselves peering around to see who was winning or losing as the game progressed.
Virgin Atlantic Text Messaging - I've come to be a real fan of the Virgin Atlantic Airline. I took them to and from England for my recent EuroTrip. The experience to London was good enough, but apparently, on the way back I was on one of the "upgraded" planes. This plane featured a far more interactive in-flight entertainment system (powered by Linux no less).
What interested me most was the Text Messaging abilities. The system allowed members to send SMS messages to their buddies on the ground. More importantly, though I didn't experiment with it, a passenger could message another passenger on the plane. This was ideally intended for the singles that spy someone of interest in the Waiting Lounge or while on the way to the rest room. It's quite ingenious.
Is an emerging Third Space our travel space? If these are any indicators it seems like we should expect more changes along these lines than less.