Nice abstract for an academic paper on "Hiptop Nation" — the new kinds of group behavior enabled y the T-Mobile Sidekick and other examples of Danger's HipTop PDA.
This paper examines the successful evolution of a specific smart mob into a wireless community of practice. It begins with an examination of a popular wireless blogging website "Hiptop Nation" (http://hiptop.bedope.com). "Hiptop Nation" acts as a central blogging site for owners of the "Sidekick" device, a portable handheld data communications device recently introduced by Danger (http://danger.com). The Sidekick supports wireless AOL Instant Messaging, email, SMS text messages, and web access. Users of the Sidekick can post wireless public blogs on Hiptop Nation via their Sidekick device, as well as upload photographs from the Sidekick's digital camera.
On Halloween, October 31 2002, Hiptop Nation sponsored a photo-scavenger hunt competition across the US. Participants were users of the Hiptop Nation blog site who were placed into competing teams, and participants coordinated their actions as well as acquired and uploaded photographs across the US exclusively via their Sidekick wireless devices. The hunt lasted for 24 hours.
(Thanks, Howard!)
