A central vision driving today’s telecommunication research is the one 
of transparent immediacy: communication media attempting to simulate the 
real-time face-to-face situation as closely as possible, thereby engendering 
a sense of being together, or social presence. In contrast, the emergence 
and proliferation of email, instant messaging and SMS indicate a need for 
low-bandwidth, asynchronous, informal communication systems, enabling people 
to stay emotionally connected. Such communication needs may not be best 
served by systems emulating physical proximity. We investigate how 
telecommunication devices may support light-hearted, effortless interpersonal 
communication, helping people to stay in touch, to maintain peripheral 
awareness of each other’s whereabouts and activities over extended periods of time. 
In this paper, we present the concepts of social presence and connectedness 
as complementary notions, each relating to a different set of media properties 
that serve distinct communication needs. Based on existing literature and empirical 
work from the ASTRA project, we discuss user requirements and evaluations for home 
awareness systems.