Topic of Interest: The "App"

Hello world,

The topic of interest that will be discussed in this blog is the "App." Everyone is familiar with it, but what IS it? We are going to be exploring the role that this technology plays in contemporary society and culture as well as other aspects of day to day life from a vantage point of infrastructure and classification systems. Throughout the course of this blog we will be asking various questions that examine the role of the "App." We will start by examining how we use the "App" in our every day lives and from there the questions will start flowing: What were the origins of the "App?" Who developed it? What was their intentions for this technology? What are the competitors? What is the intended platform? What infrastructures were necessary to make the "App" possible? How has the "App" emerged in popular culture? Who writes about it and how is it positioned within these publications? How do we classify and structure the "App" within the current classification systems? From what point of scale should we examine this technology? Within our colloquial understanding, what factors are we not looking at that go into the supporting infrastructures of the "App?" What kind of conflicts and debates have emerged around the "App?" How has the "App" re-structured patterns of behavior? Which groups are dependent on it and are affected by the "App?" As well as; how is the "App" valuable to understand for culture? Our goal will be to answer these questions as well as many other questions that will arise throughout the research process to create a better understanding of what exactly the "App" IS and how we interact and engage with this technology in our every day lives.