Coachella’s Smart Wristbands: Connecting People or Invading Your Privacy?
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| Coachella’s “Live Click” Social Media Check-in Portal |
Back in 2007, Twittermade a big splash at SXSW, simultaneously popularizing the micro-blogging service and branding the Austin-based film and music festival as a significant interactive conference as well. Now, Coachella is leading the social media community by providing RFID wristbands to ticketholders. The 2-weekend long festival in the California desert valley of the same name had 30,000 fans register to “Live Click” at various touch points throughout the festival grounds, which automatically updated their Facebook status. This was apparently just an experiment, according to an article by Fast Company, but it obviously has far-reaching implications.
Would you allow your wristband to check you in at social events, or are you concerned about privacy issues? More importantly, did SXSW miss out by not introducing this technology?