Further to my last post, one aspect of bluejacking does interest me. A number of the innovations heralded in the next few years involve the practice of hooking together people who may not know each other, but are physically nearby. For instance, look at multiplayer Bluetooth gaming and the N-gage: the idea that people will sit on the trains looking to play games against new opponents is commonplace.

Technically, this is possible now. But what social conventions will we build around this? What mechanisms will we use to advertise the fact that we are interested in playing games with (or sharing media with, or learning more about) people around us who we don't know? And how will we politely request these contatcs?

Today, unsolicited interruptions from strangers via phones exist in the form of SMS spam - and are understandably unpopular. If my phone rings and gets my attention, distracting me from my train of thought or the newspaper I'm reading, will I be any less annoyed if the source of this interruption is nearby?

Bluejacking is interesting because it'll give us the first clues as to how people feel about these kinds of interruptions and how they'll react to them. Of course it won't give us the full picture - but we'll learn a little, which can't be a bad thing.

Update: "The useful mechanisms we've developed to help us play online with strangers, especially in MMPOGs, don't translate so well when our real-life bodies and legal identities are on the line. I wish I knew how to politely request gameplay without freaking someone out, or accept such a request without feeling a little creeped out myself. The problem is not, as Matt Jones suggests, just a question of manners -- although an etiquette of public computer-mediated contact with strangers is a good start. It's a question of physical vulnerability, and how close we will allow virtual strangers to get before we start slugging." - from Confectious