In all remote conversations, the question “where are you?” is as important as the reason for the call. But very quickly, other questions appear: “Where am I exactly? What is nearby? Who?” Location, and what we now call geolocated media, have become a major issue, technological, economic and even social. Spatial location tools, georeferencing of photographs, mobile community sites, localized information in mobility situations, artistic practices, geolocalized media offer a whole range of new applications based on the geopositioning of users. The physical space is enriched with a “digital layer” offering new ways of creating or circulating content and original forms of sociability. But if geolocalized media provoke excessive expectations, they also arouse fears. What do they concretely change in our way of perceiving time and space, and in our relationship with others? What are the societal consequences? What should we think of the new hybridizations of digital worlds and the physical environment? What technologies are involved? What types of applications are really possible? Beyond marketing speeches, Nicolas Nova, internationally recognized for his expertise in the field, responds to all these issues in a clear, complete and affordable manner. It offers a prospective and critical approach to current innovations, and allows us to understand the implications that these technologies will truly have in our daily lives, by explaining how and for whom. This work also offers concrete and realistic avenues for still unexplored uses.
