Gifts from friends and strangers: A study of mobile music sharing

Mobile technology has turned the traditionally collective activity of enjoying music into an often private one. New technologies such as wireless ad hoc networks have the potential to re-connect listeners who are now separated by headphones. We report on a field study of Push!Music, a novel mobile music sharing system. Push!Music allows both manual and automatic sharing of music between users through ad hoc wireless networking, and also provides a social awareness of other users nearby. The system was used by 13 subjects for three weeks. In post-study interviews, we identified four categories of results: social awareness, sharing music with friends, sharing music with strangers, and sharing automatically. Based on this, we present implications for design that can be applied not only to mobile music sharing systems, but to mobile media sharing in general: Allow division into active and passive use; enhance the awareness of who, where and when; support reciprocity; and finally, support identity and impression management.