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The strength of future social media lies in connecting groups to share moments of fun and laughter. For the TA2 project (Together Anywhere, Together Anytime), TNO and partners research how families and groups of friends in distant locations can easily pursue the activities they normally enjoy when being physically together.
Opposed to the individual orientation of media like e-mail and phone, the challenge of TA2 is to develop new products and services that facilitate attractive, useful, natural and fun social interaction.
Gaming for example seems to be not all about the game itself. Gaming is often used as an excuse to meet, sit down, talk, tease and even cheat. The TA2 project is looking for answers to the question in what way group connecting facilities might help families who are unable to see each other on a regular base in nurturing their relationships?
To support the developing process of these new products and services, TNO and partners have looked into current communication practices of families. A selection of families in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK was interviewed about the way they nurture their distant relationships, communication habits, needs, desires and concerns.
Along with user centered research, critical business issues are being identified for group connecting applications. Inspired by these market insights and user research, five demonstrators will be developed in the TA2 project. These demonstrators will fulfil the need for informal group communication in everyday family life.
TA2 is the large scale Integrating Project of the ICT Work Programme within the European Community’s 7th Framework Programme, and receives funding from the European Commission under grant agreement number 214793. In this project, TNO Information and Communication Technology cooperates with 13 partners (both industry and academics) from 7 European countries. Partners from the Netherlands are Philips and stichting Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica(CWI). The project has started in 2008 and will finish in January 2012. More information about the TA2 project can be found on the website.
