Context vs location

Nokia user experience champion and Etech speaker alumni Chris Heathcote has a round-up of S60-based Flickr uploaders. The real gem of the piece is, however, hidden at end, discussing the bluetagging feature of two of the uploaders:

The most controversial feature of them all is storing and publishing Bluetooth IDs. Are these personal information? Are you allowed to store this data (particularly in the EU)? It’s, well, illuminating from a privacy angle, but my take on it is that metadata is always useful. Already in Helsinki, with probably a few tens of users of both Meaning and Context Watcher, we’re seeing intersections between Bluetooth device IDs on photos: this means that a particular device/individual was nearby both ekurvine and myself when we took the pictures.

I've been trying to make a point for a while that it's typically more important who's around you than where you are. Context versus location. In broad terms, location gives you the yellow pages spread thin on a map while context gives you the richness associated with true life -- work, private, and play.