Pick Up and Play: Understanding Tangibility for Cloud Media

The transition from local and personally owned file-based media management to cloud-based streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix brings new opportunities for users, but also leaves gaps in their understanding and practice. In this paper we present findings from an interview study that explored early adopters’ complex relationships with their collections which spanned physical, digital and cloud media. From this we entered a design process focussing on new material forms for cloud based media. Based on this we discuss our design and point to areas where, tangible or not, affordances from physical and digital media are available to be explored in the cloud. Looking in particular at the concepts of scarcity, gifting, and identity we outline possible reasons why, and why not, they could be incorporated into cloud media services.