LANT 'Community'

It would be appropriate to show the data that LANT can upload in the context of how it will be used and shown.

Here is a mock-up Intranet homepage of a fictional annual LAN Party called "Big LAN"...



There is some example data shown in the image that is uploaded by LANT, and collected by the Intranet server. There are two examples of how this data can be visualised to users, one being a traditional bar graph that shows hardware data from the user's systems, and the other a more abstract visualisation of how many miles mice have travelled at the LAN so far. This data is put into Google Maps' API and plotted as a random journey, showing how far users could get on the distance their mice have traveled, in this case, Brunel University to Acton.

Because the Intranet aspect of LANT is designed to create a 'community' at LAN Parties, various communication methods have been added to the example Intranet page, for example the news section where admins of the LAN can put news up, and also the comment function, a tool found on many 'Web 2.0' implementations (Facebook, Youtube, etc.). The comment function will allow users at the LAN to comment on news stories, data visualisations, files, servers, etc. on the Intranet, prompting everything that is put on the Intranet to be an area of discussion.

The example shown above is only a basic version of what can be uploaded through LANT. Some other community functions that would be appropriate include forums, a live 'Battlecast' style video-feed from game servers, screenshot uploading, character 'loadouts' or configuration display, etc.

This kind of visualisation and data collection on Intranet software is not a new tool, and is even implemented already specifically for LAN Parties (Autonomous LAN Party, ALP, view online demonstration here). However, this kind of software is Intranet only, and so the user has to connect and view the Intranet webpage in order to submit any data (probably through a form). LANT will work around this by offering an automation to this process, making the data submission local and real-time. It is possible to socialise, log and visualise so many aspects of a LAN Party already, LANT will simply automate the 'community' aspect, offer the customisation, and allow more accessibility previously unreachable on LAN Intranets.