Fashion company WeSC has come up
with a concept that could see social interactions powered by an RFID tag embedded in your shoe. The result is somewhere between Foursquare and Nike Plus.
RFID technology is commonly used in transport systems (such as Oyster) and for tracking logistics. WeSC’s KarmaTech concept, designed by students at digital media school Hyper Island, sees RFID used for linking the real world with social media.
By placing an RFID tag into each WeSC shoe (or any shoe for that matter), you can create a network of people that could have access to their social networking services, as well as special location-based deals and services.
The shoe owner would first have to activate their particular shoes online and then link their shoe to their Facebook, Twitter and Flickr profiles.
Whenever the shoe interacts with a reader — which is proposed as a sort of RFID reading mat — the ID of the shoe is read and sent to a server which then connects with the chosen interactive platform to deliver a status message. It can also communicate back to the location of the mat to deliver a personalised message. So one can imagine walking into a store and automatically triggering a welcome message while tweeting about your location.
The technology could allow you to create real-life Facebook-like buttons that people could step on in shops and bars to “Like” different things.
The shoes could also be used as entry to an event, to get free items in shops, or to become Facebook friends with another person wearing the shoes. You could also have mats in clubs which you could tread on to get your photo taken and immediately uploaded to Flickr.
The main drawback with this idea is the fact that it requires hardware in participating locations, unlike Foursquare, which only requires a mobile phone.
However there’s something very satisfying about the interplay between analogue and digital that is present in KarmaTech and not in Foursquare. By opting in online once, you wouldn’t need to get out your phone to check in at every location. You could just pass over a mat at the threshold.
In fact, the two technologies could potentially be interlinked so that you could check in on Foursquare using your shoes.
It’s not the first time that a company has tried to bring social media to life in physical form. In August 2010 Coca-Cola turned an Israeli summer camp into a real world Facebook with a combination of RFID wristbands and “Like” buttons at various stands. Check out the video of the project below:
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