Two persons in the same place, as represented on the Foursquare interface. A depiction of co-presence mediated by technology.

Co-presence, as described by Zhao can refer to the sense of being together with other people in a remote or a shared virtual environment. To refer back to Goffman, it's a form of human co-location in which individuals become "accessible, available, and subject to one another".

The advent of location-based services lead to a new class of situation where people can b both physically copresent (what Zhao calls "Corporeal Copresence") and located in electronic proximity (what Zhao calls "Corporeal Telecopresence"). Which is what happens with the Foursquare interface. The categories are then not mutually exclusive.

Why do I blog this? curiosity about what this kind of constraints can lead to, in terms of location-based services in a physically co-present context.