will u marry me?

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Sep 30, 2006 4:08PM

As blogging, social networking and alternate lives become more integrated into our community we will become an increasingly open and bold society. People's personal lives, embellishments aside, are out for everyone to see and even comment on. When will this mesh with the public arena?

Enter Wiffiti. Wiffiti is a combination of text messaging and graffiti (wireless graffiti) which The Economist credits being started in Europe. Wiffiti allows a passerby to text a message to be displayed on a screen, wall, television, you name it. Wiffiti is available in 8 locations currently, but is expected to grow. We expect most growth in wiffiti will be due to advertiser interest, but time will tell.

Wiffiti made its way into Chicago a few months back at Filter Cafe in Wicker Park. The set up is an out of place flat screen television facing the seating area. The first time we saw it we didn't see too many people partaking in the activities, but we must say we were tempted to propose to a few of the patrons. It wouldn't be the first time, in Toscanini's cafe in Cambridge, MA a woman received a proposal on the wiffiti screen. It took her 29 minutes to accept, which is completely justified.

We do think as users become more comfortable with wiffiti, we will start to see socially and politically charged statements making their way on the screen. The opposite side is we could also see spammers taking over, as you don't have to physically be at the location to text a message. The last couple of times we have been to Filter the wiffiti screen was off, but if you get curious as to what is being posted you can follow the Filter screen, among the other locations, at wiffiti.com.

Thanks, Timmy