Contact Report
[Update - 01/11/07]: We changed our approach and labelled our second wave of frogs with a username and password that are preregistered. This was in effort to lower the barriers to access and allow frog finders to bypass the registration process. We also changed our distribution methods, sending out frogs with our friends on different public transit routes. With these changes we recieved two more responses. The posts are what we were waiting for, good descriptions about what users were feeling when they saw the frog sitting on the transit system.
Post #1:
"...sitting peacefully on a westbound GO Train seat. I walked by it once*, thinking someone left it. When I walked back, I noticed it had, most likely, been left on the seat on purpose, because of the way it sat. I picked it up, stuck it in my bag, and continued on to find a seat, and cracked open my copy of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.
*I just realized the thought process that made me leave it the first time: upon noticing it, I immediately thought about where it's been and how it got there. Was it dirty? Could it harm me in some way? A disease maybe? No. it's a plastic frog, and a squeaky little frog too. It was paranoia. Even if it was just for an instant, it was there.
There were others in the car, some reading newspapers, others looking out of the window, and still others probably wondering what I was doing looking at a seat. Surely at least some of them saw this frog. It's bright green against the dark blue of the seat. Maybe I'm not the only paranoid one.
To the owners of this frog, those who spent the money buying it, and setting this whole project up, thanks for the insight. Let this "ToadHall" user know if you'd like it back.
Cheers,
Toadhall"
Post #2
"I don't know what this is all about, but I sat and watched people look at the frog for the whole time not knowing what to do with it. Mind you this is the morning rush hour, people are rushing to get to work, I doubt a little frog would really be that noticeable.
IT IS SITTING ON THE SEAT DOING NOTHING.
Funny thing is, I'm sure I have counted more than a couple of glances, so people did notice it.
I'm just here to say I found ToadHall. This is a really neat project. I Found This on the Fourth Last Car on the Go-Train and arrived at Union at 9:40 on Friday October 26. Placed in the middle of the car"
Our community failed to materialize even though we spread a lot of frogs through out the transit system of Toronto. We sent out about 50 frogs with "foundafrog.com" or "visit foundafrog.com" written on them. Out of those 50 we received 1 response back to the site. While it's disappointing to us, it also reveals some interesting information about social barriers in public spaces. In urban spaces people largely will not interact with objects or people unless there is a significant "carrot" or incentive to engage; a free sample, a coupon, food, etc. It seems as though people just didn't see an incentive to sign up in the discussion board. There might also have been a factor of fear holding people back. Fear of the cleanliness of the frog or that the website might have been malicious and damage there computer.
This barrier to engagement is opposite from what we discovered in a previous assignment where we had users leave there email address. When people saw they there was no corporate involvement they freely gave their information. However there were two major differences with that project; there was human interaction and there was a clear returned value to the participant leaving their email. The human interaction made for a reassuring experience, they saw that we were smiling and for the most part put at ease and interacted. There was also clear incentive if they gave up their information to us, they would receive an email with content of the final outcome of the then yet to be completed art piece. After the initial lack of interest, we did tests by placing frogs in the transit system then sitting around them to listen for conversation and here people's opinion of the experiment. The majority of people initially thought it was a child's toy left behind but then upon seeing the website written on the stomach, mistook it for a marketing campaign or advertisement.
We had few assumptions before hand, as we did not know what our community would look like or who they would be. We thought they might be people with extra time on their hands and had internet access. Many different people ride Toronto transit systems, our community could have been made up of anybody. Our one member who did sign up appears to be an elementary school aged girl. She left a link to her own personal website which gave us a bit of information about her.
