the mediator The Internet streamlined for conversation
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This mobile application provides the user with a live feed of the latest and most popular news articles, movies, music, and books available on the internet. The media is presented in a easy to understand, non-cluttered, streamlined manner for simple consumption or more importantly as potential conversation starters.
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This is Jayanth. He is 21 and lives in Shanamangala. He is a B.Com student.
One day, on the way back home from Hosur, Jayanth decides to watch a movie on his cell phone. He opens up the mediator app he downloaded a few weeks ago and logs in.
Jayanth enters his password and logs in
Once in the homepage he clicks on movies
Changes mode from world to local
He wants to see the top 20 movies
He’s not too sure which movie he wants to watch, so he checks out the Comments
Hmm. Looks good! I think I’ll watch it.
Goes back to the movie page
Jayanth thoroughly enjoys the movie. It has one of his favourite actors, Vijay, after all
He was perplexed by something he noticed in the movie though. He didn’t understand how the hero escaped from the don’s hideout without getting caught.
Luckily, the mediator app is able to connect Jayanth to his friends.
Goes to the discussion page
He tries joining an existing chat room but there isn’t one open
So he starts his own
Chooses to start a chat room
Once there he waits for someone interested in the movie to join
Manoj joins the conversation!
They start talking
Jayanth decides to host a discussion at his house
Goes back and clicks on Face to Face Discussion
Enters when, where and whether or not It is a private discussion
Sure enough, Manoj was at Jayanth’s house at 6: 30 along with Kumar who saw the alert on his phone. They cleared all of Jayanth’s doubts and talked some more for hours.
What is the situation now? Teenagers and middle aged married men in rural India love to talk about the latest current events, music, movies and books. Being in a remote village restricts the amount of media they are exposed to. They rely on the TV, radio, outdated music and movie CDs available in nearby towns, phone conversations with friends and family who live in the city and the occasional visitor for new conversation topics. The internet is hardly explored largely due to the expense and intimidating complexity of using a computer.
Target User Group • • • • •
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Youth boys and girls aged 14 to 30; also applicable to Middle aged married men Have access to mobile phones with wireless internet connection. Belong to R1 or R2 segment Comfortable typing and reading on a phone in Kannada/ English Enjoy reading books, keeping up to date on the news, watching movies, listening to music and talking about these things. They love to share news, incidents and get opinions from friends and family
Device • • • • •
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Mobile phone with high speed net connection High end phones will have maximum features (Video, Hi res images, touch screen experience etc.) Lower end phones will be able to connect but with limited usage (readings, news articles, music) Through our research we have found that users in the target group are quite comfortable using mobile phones. The women of the house usually have control over what everyone watches on TV, so the TV is not an option for regular use of this app. Computers are hard to come by in rural India , but will be a suitable platform for this application. The portability and affordability of mobile phones are also great advantages.
Features • Essentially an app or website accessed through a mobile phone that provides the user with a means of obtaining new topics of conversation and/or discussion, as well as a space to discuss them. • Users can upload pictures, videos, songs, status messages that can be commented upon and discussed by authorized friends. There is an instant ‘click and post’ option on phones with a camera. • If there are enough people interested in a certain topic (video, song, article etc) a discussion can be started around it. The discussions happen through an instant messenger like interface, conference call, or an actual physical face-toface discussion that the app helps organize (with the help of GPS if available).
• There is a constant live feed of suggested readings (News articles, book excerpts, books), new music, videos, movies, based on current world events or local topic trending. • Users can add and remove friends; also, groups or lists of friends with separate privacy settings can be created. • Users can rate the various media based on interest. • There can be an emoticon style language developed as a method of communicating likes, dislikes or other comments to keep it accessible to people who find it hard to type in Kannada/ English.
The system • • •
A app that requires a small nominal fee to download. About 10% of the suggested media can be sponsored suggestions to support the system. This sort of service can be provided by the Internet or cellular service providers themselves, as downloadable applications.
What are they reading/ watching? Friends
Are any of them having a discussion together?
Where are they?
Open App
Sign in with user name
Group and privacy settings
Mode: Local, State, Country, World
Music
Movies
Feed
App Work Flow
Upload media/
News
Choose: Right now or top 10 of last day, week, month, All time.
Books
All/ Combos
Who’s reading/ watching it?
Info
Your rating
Articles current interest rating News
Choose article
Upload/ View Comments Make/Join Instant Message Chat Conversation Discussion Make/ join Conference Call
App Work Flow Contd.
Invite/ join friends home/ elsewhere for discussion
The App