Blogjects, Spimes, and Content for the Internet of Things
New content, new devices, and a wealth of networks
Our objects and things live lives all their own.
We don’t often think about our appliances, our possessions, or the great amount of stuff we’ve accumulated. We appreciate it, from time to time; we use it when we need it, discard it when we’re done with it. Some of us connect our devices to the Internet of Things (IoT) to ensure they’re “smart” and can communicate with similar technologies. We like a good, clean UX and a simple interface for our household devices. We like portability.
But what if those same objects were able to actively participate in their world, rather than waiting for us to motivate them to do so?
There’s been a lot of talk the last few years about the Internet of Things, and the implications not only for smarter data but also for security and usability. Sure, it’s cool for a minute to make the toaster talk to the lamp. Is there greater meaning? Is there a point to having hyperlinked objects, or physical products that tell stories?
Blogject is a term coined by Julian Bleecker. In his conception, blogjects are exactly what they sound like: blog objects, or objects that can blog. Hyperlinked devices or digitally connected products not only serve their technological functions but also actively convey what they’re doing. They’re assertive in their environments; they command space, and need attention. They influence the world around them. It isn’t about web 2.0, but world 2.0.
Bleecker is working in the tradition of Bruce Sterling, who wrote Shaping Things, a design manifesto for objects. In that book, he created the concept of spimes, or objects that can be tracked through space and time throughout their entire life. Spimes are a trip—they not only can be digital products, but can take physical form; they can be physical but take digital form. They communicate with one another, and with you. They’re communicating in their world the only way they know how, and have been programmed.
Spimes have a certain set of uses and criteria. For one, they’re small and inexpensive. They typically function via radio-frequency identification (RFID, or “arphid”) tags, and near-field communication (NFC). They can be used to locate something on earth, such as through GPS. They can be used to mine large amounts of data, can be used for rapid prototyping or experimental designs, and enable beginning-to-end lifespans, especially to ensure cheap and efficient recycling or generalized reuse.
For a long time, hyperlinked objects were no more than theoretical. The Internet of Things was a radical if indefinite notion. In the early years, the creation of a web of hyperlinked things ran into a simple technical problem: address exhaustion. Under the IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4), there simply weren’t enough available IP addresses to account for all the possible objects that would need links. But when the IPv6 became an Internet Standard in 2017, the idea of connected blogjects and spimes was made manifest. The new protocol has more usable addresses than we could ever possibly use. Here was the chance to connect objects intimately across space, time, and ideology.
So an idea once seen as science fiction has become science fact. Our daily life has added these objects in naturally, and we no longer question what a generation earlier would’ve been a radical reworking of space, manufacturing, and design. Privacy, or data collection, was sacrificed willingly so we could interface directly with others on our phones and screens. We want the connection; we want to be able to turn clicks into objects that appear on our doorstep.
With a highly connected world, it’s reasonable to believe we can track and know where our stuff comes from. We can track packages ordered on Amazon through their journey with USPS, UPS, or FedEx. We can see delivery hubs and know when the package is on the doorstep. We can use QR codes on brochures or pieces of paper in restaurants to directly take us to the website and the menu. We buy products with barcodes. We can order food and see the progress that’s being made, and how quickly DoorDash will bring it. We see the status of payments in our online bank account portals; we see where our animals are located from RFID tags in their collars or under their skin.
But what if we wanted more? What if we wanted those same objects to not only show us the data to tell stories, but to tell the stories themselves? Blogjects are hyperlinked to the internet, and thus easily interfaced with websites or data collection points. That package you’re tracking on Amazon can not only send you where it’s at, but what’s going on around it. It could tell you about the people involved in the process of bringing it to you, or making it in the first place.
Sustainability and ethical extraction and use have become top of mind for many people around the world. Our connected world is connected down to the atoms. We ask for conflict-free diamonds for engagement bands, or want to know that our food comes from an open pasture and was raised humanely. We want to know what extractivism occurred in Chile for platinum, or in the Congo for coltan, both used in the phones we carry in our pockets every day. We’re connected and hyperlinked via the elements and minerals of the earth.
Spimes and blogjects could not only help ensure sustainability and ethical extraction, but could tell the story of how it happened and the people involved. For example, a series of RFID tags or NFC components could link someone’s personal blog or social pages to the object upon coming in contact, which stimulates a blog or content post. This shares that portion of the story with the world. A package no longer stops at a warehouse in Reno—a chapter in its story is written there.
Let’s say, for example, a package is ordered on Amazon and is being sent to Ohio. The package, or specifically the object inside, has an RFID tag embedded in it. This tag is a trigger, and it operates by sending a message within a field of communication (say a few feet) of a compatible transponder through an antenna. The transponder sends a message to the digital device worn by mail workers that automatically uploads a chosen bit of content to their social hub that is then processed via RSS feed or similar mechanism and is read by the online retailer who has sent your package and is providing tracking updates.
When the package arrives at a mail distribution center in Ohio, the RFID trigger tag is read by transponders in the personalized hyperlinked wearables of the postal workers or the handler on duty. It can also be read by the building itself, if that location has a useful website. This information is uploaded directly to the shipping portal. So now, when you go to check on your package, you not only see where it’s been, but who it’s been in contact with. You see stories. You see content related to the journey. You see an object moving in space and time, and know the stories of those in contact with it.
Postal workers are just the bare example. The real story comes from knowing about world-related things that effect how we see the world and how our values align with what we consume. We verify with these same tags that the animals we’re eating really are raised in a pasture, far from confined factory conditions. We create transparency by telling the stories of farmers, workers, and handlers in our agricultural environments. We see the workers who make our phones and laptops; we see their stories and understand the objects we make tell a story of where they’ve been. We make content by aggregating the narratives of others to piece together our world, one blog or content piece at a time.
The challenge, of course, is curation. We don’t want a new slew of IP addresses existing merely so a toaster can blog about toast. We don’t need more noise, we have plenty as it is. We need stories that are curated to fit into the narratives we need to make informed decisions. We want our principles to be backed up with data.
We can, for example, tell a story for conversion if we’re of an ecommerce mindset. We can use blogjects and spimes to record manufacturing history and their environmental output, or see what exactly is not working in an appliance by simply asking it via interface. These reviews can be uploaded automatically to the website as product specs, so we don’t have to rely on subjective interpretation but see down to the hardware what works, what doesn’t, and why we might want to purchase similar products.
We can optimize the products to blog or reveal content that is set for certain layers of the buyer’s funnel; perhaps such specs will push someone down into the ready-to-buy category. If honesty and transparency and authenticity truly are values people desire from companies these days, then the product itself blogging and telling you its honest story is one of the best ways to reveal what customers want. A digital record in narrative form of everything the product has done and what it can handle would also be valuable.
We can use Raspberry Pi and smart computing to better monitor the pH and moisture levels of our gardens and our farms. We can use this data to automatically communicate to us, via app, to better use our resources in the future. We make the content we need, and curate it to tell the stories we want others to see. For every product marketer out there, the ability for the product to speak for itself is both a blessing (for the scrupulous companies) and a curse (for the unscrupulous).
Of course, blogjects and spimes can fit into ontological frameworks the same way blogs and content pieces can fit into an online information hierarchy. It might be that we organize household objects and devices in taxonomies the same way we organize websites into navigation ribbons and headers and footers with connected categories and thematic groupings. Blogs might be connected from blogjects that show objects actively communicating with one another, sharing content and mutually creating. Increased complexity, but increased storytelling.
At the moment, most of this is speculative. Though the technological conditions are in place for a world of hyperlinked objects, it isn’t perfected, and so far it doesn’t remain terribly useful. In machine intelligence, deep learning holds some of the most promise, but also has drawbacks and considerations. It’s simply too big for those little objects right now. The ability for ambient intelligence of objects and locations is a potential security nightmare. Objects that can not only blog but actively learn and interact their environment while simultaneously shaping it have the potential to seriously increase filter bubbles.
If spimes are embedded with intelligent or deep learning-able RFID tags, then they have the ability to manufacture stories and, theoretically, obfuscate. If blogjects are hyperlinked objects that automatically upload content to the web hub of choice, they act like decentralized internet broadcast nodes, potentially being hackable and increasing the amount of false specs and stories that can keep someone in a further state of filtered protection.
Curating the news feed of a social network can lead to curating the literal objects we keep with us. Having our smart refrigerator link to the internet and push out fake news is the last thing we’d ever want. Smart objects that use their RFID and NFC tags to hijack our phones and present blog content culled and written with deep learning that drives us further into our bubbles not only jeopardizes our life and health but the future of our planet, if used incorrectly. Worse, if countries wall themselves off with unique DNS sovereignty, appliances can be used to spread malware or collect private data and broadcast it, forming nationwide blackmail resources.
When all this is said and done, the connected tags and receivers can help us with efficient recycling. It can help us understand what parts and components can be reused, and give voice to mountains of refuse to let us know what is biodegrading and what impact it’s having on the environment. We can see our things and our products as connected to our world, the way they naturally are. We can read about them being returned and reused for a more sustainable world.
It seems likely that we’ll do as we’ve always done with new technologies and continue to adopt and experiment with them, finding drawbacks and mischief while discovering new uses and boosting security. For a content marketer, the ability to auto generate stories across platforms and objects is exciting. I love the idea, in general. I love that we can see stories in real time that connect us all. I love giving context to the spimes of our world.
Here’s hoping Bleecker is correct and web 3.0 makes a better world 3.0.