Conference on Human Factors in Computing System, Companion Proceedings , p206-207. In distributed communities, media spaces supply people with an awareness of who is around by displaying video or periodic snapshots of common areas and offices. This in turn facilitates casual interaction.
Peepholes is a low cost alternative.
Instead of video, iconic presence indicators show the availability of people in a virtual community. If people are absent, a user can 'ambush' them by asking the system to announce their return. When interaction is desired, people can easily contact one another because communication software is just a button-press away. Keywords Groupware, contact facilitation, awareness, coordination. Introduction Informal awareness of one's community is the general sense of who is around and what others are up to-the kinds of things that people track when they work together in the same physical environment.