kokolocation - Voices of Everyone Drifting Through Space

I created kokolocation (Kokorolocation), an SNS where "voices" drift across a map.

The inspiration for creating this service came from the feeling that "even though many people live in modern cities, you can't hear people's voices." You don't know who lives in your neighborhood. There are almost no opportunities to talk with people in your community. Behind this, I thought, lies the thinning of regional communities.

So I wondered: could we use the internet to recreate something like the old well-side chats (izutsubakaigi) in a contemporary form? However, it seemed difficult—both from a safety perspective and in terms of social skills—for people who don't know each other's faces or names to suddenly meet in person and have a conversation.

That's when I thought of leaving only the "voice" that a person uttered on the map. Above a park: "the cherry blossoms are beautiful," above a train station: "the train is delayed," above a school: "class is a drag," above an office: "I want to go home early." I thought it would be interesting if small, seemingly useless words like these floated around the city, and when they gathered together, something like the "voice of the city" would emerge.

And so was born the concept of kokolocation:

"Everyone's voices drifting through space."

Posts are displayed directly on the map as speech bubbles, rather than as "pins" like typical map services. As you move the map around, you encounter someone's voice left in that place.

I deliberately avoided including features common to typical SNS—following, timelines, and search functions. Rather than chasing influencers or collecting "useful" information, the idea is to take a walk through the map itself and encounter someone's voice drifting through that space by chance.

What we're aiming for is to recreate the "regional community" that we've lost, in a contemporary way.

It was developed by the three members of Project SUSU.