Recent events in the news have demonstrated the growing role of live streaming in sharing events with the world. Our group is interested in exploring opportunities for creating an interactive experience for remote viewers to participate in events through integrating live streams and other social media coming from the same event. I will discuss a series of studies, including a mixed methods study of the early use of Meerkat and Periscope apps for mobile live streaming. This study identified the occurrence of multiple live streams coming from the same event, which represent an opportunity for multiple perspectives on events of shared public interest. We have deployed prototypes at a jazz festival and a Comic Con to get some experience with events covered by multiple live streams.
John C. Tang is a Senior Researcher in the neXus group at Microsoft Research where he designs and studies new tools to support connecting people over distance. He uses many of these tools to connect with his research team up in Redmond, WA from Silicon Valley, CA. John's approach combines understanding users' needs through social science methods with designing and prototyping new technologies. John received his Ph.D. from Stanford University (go Cardinal!) and was named to the ACM SIGCHI Academy in 2014.