Positive Technology Journal - social_media

FaceBots

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:41:00 +0100

The world's first robot with its own Facebook page (and that can use its information in conversations with "friends") has been developed by Nikolaos Mavridis and collaborators from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab at the United Arab Emirates University.

The main hypothesis of the FaceBots project is that long-term human robot interaction will benefit by reference to "shared memories" and "events relevant to shared friends" in human-robot dialogues.

More to explore:

N. Mavridis, W. Kazmi and P. Toulis, "Friends with Faces: How Social Networks Can Enhance Face Recognition and Vice Versa", contributed book chapter to Computational Social Networks Analysis: Trends, Tools and Research Advances, Springer Verlag, 2009. pdf

N. Mavridis, W. Kazmi, P. Toulis, C. Ben-AbdelKader, "On the synergies between online social networking, Face Recognition, and Interactive Robotics", CaSoN 2009. pdf

N. Mavridis, C. Datta et al, "Facebots: Social robots utilizing and publishing social information in Facebook", IEEE HRI 2009. pdf

The future news ecosystem

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:34:00 +0200

According to Steven Johnson, this is what the future news ecosystem will look like.

Well, it makes sense, right?

Web GIS in practice VI: a demo "playlist" of geo-mashups for public health neogeographers

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:46:00 +0200

Web GIS in practice VI: a demo "playlist" of geo-mashups for public health neogeographers.

Int J Health Geogr. 2008 Jul 18;7(1):38

Authors: Kamel Boulos MN, Scotch M, Cheung KH, Burden D

ABSTRACT: 'Mashup' was originally used to describe the mixing together of musical tracks to create a new piece of music. The term now refers to Web sites or services that weave data from different sources into a new data source or service. Using a musical metaphor that builds on the origin of the word 'mashup', this paper presents a demonstration "playlist" of four geo-mashup vignettes that make use of a range of Web 2.0, Semantic Web, and 3-D Internet methods, with outputs/end-user interfaces spanning the flat Web (two-dimensional -- 2-D maps), a three-dimensional -- 3-D mirror world (Google Earth) and a 3-D virtual world (Second Life (R)). The four geo-mashup "songs" in this "playlist" are: 'Web 2.0 and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for infectious disease surveillance', 'Web 2.0 and GIS for molecular epidemiology', 'Semantic Web for GIS mashup', and 'From Yahoo! Pipes to 3-D, avatar-inhabited geo-mashups'. It is hoped that this showcase of examples and ideas, and the pointers we are providing to the many online tools that are freely available today for creating, sharing and reusing geo-mashups with minimal or no coding, will ultimately spark the imagination of many public health practitioners and stimulate them to start exploring the use of these methods and tools in their day-to-day practice. The paper also discusses how today's Web is rapidly evolving into a much more intensely immersive, mixed-reality and ubiquitous socio-experiential Metaverse that is heavily interconnected through various kinds of user-created mashups.

Using Participatory Media and Public Voice to Encourage Civic Engagement

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:37:05 +0200

a worth-reading article by Rheingold about the role of social media in supporting civic engagement

Using Participatory Media and Public Voice to Encourage Civic Engagement

Abstract. Teaching young people how to use digital media to convey their public voices could connect youthful interest in identity exploration and social interaction with direct experiences of civic engagement. Learning to use blogs (“web logs,” web pages that are regularly updated with links and opinion), wikis (web pages that non-programmers can edit easily), podcasts (digital radio productions distributed through the Internet), and digital video as media of self-expression, with an emphasis on “public voice,” should be considered a pillar—not just a component—of twenty-first-century civic curriculum. Participatory media that enable young people to create as well as consume media are popular among high school and college students. Introducing the use of these media in the context of the public sphere is an appropriate intervention for educators because the rhetoric of democratic participation is not necessarily learnable by self-guided point-and-click experimentation. The participatory characteristics of online digital media are described, examples briefly cited, the connection between individual expression and public opinion discussed, and specific exercises for developing a public voice through blogs, wikis, and podcasts are suggested. A companion wiki provides an open-ended collection of resources for educators: https://www.socialtext.net/medialiteracy.

PDF (145 KB)

PDF Plus (145 KB)

New platform for crowdsourcing

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:15:48 +0100

Via TheAppGap

Kluster is a platform for crowdsourcing and then organizing and putting to use skills, energy and availability on projects and initiatives. From the ReadWriteWeb review:

Kluster Launches at TED: A New Product in 72 Hours

Crowdsourcing firm Kluster officially launched yesterday at the TED conference, which is underway this week in Monterey, California. Founder Ben Kaufman, who bankrolled the company in part with money from the sale of his last company Mophie, has organized a gimmick over the course of the TED conference he hopes will prove Kluster’s worth. Kaufman intends to let TED attendees — and users from around the world — design a completely new product over the course of 72 hours.

The idea behind Kluster is that a group of passionate people working together can come up with better solutions for any decision-making problem than a single person. Whether that is planning an event, designing a new logo, or creating a new product, Kluster believes their system can.

[ Snip … ]

The Kluster system works by breaking down products into manageable chunks. For each chunk (or "phase"), people submit what are called "sparks." Sparks are proposed solutions for that phase. For each spark, other participants can submit "amps" — which are improvements to that idea. Users also assign "watts" to sparks and amps they like. Watts work kind of like investments. You accrue points based on participation and other factors, and can invest those points (watts) in ideas you like.

Then an algorithm that takes into account "each user’s successes, failures, reputation, areas of expertise, and overall history" goes to work to determine which sparks are the best. Companies interested in using the Kluster system, put up cash prizes that are doled out along the way (at the completion of each phase).

Neulio: Free Video Site for Educational Clips

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:50:00 +0100

Via Mashable

Neulio is a video education site where anyone can create lessons for free. Lessons created can be in video or quiz format. Create a profile, and you’ll be able to access, share, and create lessons, though lessons are also available for non-members as well. Neulio will keep track of the recent lessons you’ve viewed, but there doesn’t appear to be an option for saving lessons in any way associated to your account (i.e. favorites folder, etc.). You can send lessons to friends, social bookmarking sites, rate them and leave comments.

Google launches Knowledge Project "Knol"

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:55:00 +0100

The BBC reports that Google has launched "knol", a project to create an authoritative store of information about any and every topic. The search giant has already started inviting people to write about the subject on which they are known to be an expert.

According to analysts, the knol system is an attack on Wikipedia

MATES

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:05:00 +0200

mates is a location-based social networking system in the form of a robust web service, or Relationship Engine, and an optional rich media client application, or Relationship Space Navigator.

from the project's website:

Our objective in creating mates has been to build an open infrastructure to introduce and connect individuals based on the intersection of physical location and other properties they might have in common.

mates is different than the wide range of existing social networking and instant messaging applications. We strive to create an open infrastructure that will allow existing software to harness the power of location based social networking

The current version of mates is geared towards the academic community, focusing on course registration and academic interests. This set of properties could easily be extended to encompass professional or social environments with hooks into LDAP directories or existing social networking applications. and a platform on top of which other new, powerful applications can be developed.

Democratic polling interface

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 20:19:04 +0200

Re-blogged from InfoAesthetics

a web-based application prototype that allows participants to provide direct responses to current issues facing their governments on a selection of social scales (e.g. housing, health, immigration, social rights). the "Waterfall" interfaces visualizes the issues, votes & opinions of participants, with size depending on importance. "Where in the World" aligns contributing authors with their geographical location. "In Context" displays issues in a quantative by a matrix of horizontal stacked bar graphs.

links:

undiscovered-country.net

restlesseye.com

Social Networks for Disaster Relief

noreply@blogspirit.com (Andrea Gaggioli) — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:39:41 +0100

From MIT's Technology Review:

The emergence of the Internet as a social environment led us to come up with a service where people could first report the scope of a tsunami or a wildfire or even an E. coli attack," says Ben Schneiderman, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland and a coauthor of the report. Schneiderman got the idea when he typed 911 into Google and was unable to find any useful information. "There was no service that would provide information or assistance during Katrina-like events." The system is not strictly an online analog of 911 or other emergency-reporting services, says Schneiderman. "We think it may be helpful in advance of emergencies, during emergencies, and during rebuilding and restoration afterwards."
Murray Turoff, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, says that "what most people don't seem to understand is that the real first responders in disasters are the people in the community." Turoff, who developed the first emergency computer network for the U.S. Office of Emergency Preparedness in 1971, says that the government still has not taken steps to ensure that relief efforts are properly coordinated. "All these organizations need to be able to talk laterally," he says.

Jennifer Preece, an expert in human-computer interactions at the University of Maryland and a coauthor of the study, says that for 911.gov to be successful, it will have to draw in volunteers from other communities and be integrated with existing social-networking sites. If the government backs the site, she says, it, too, could have the clout to draw in users. She points out that during Katrina, many people found their information by heading to local libraries. "Why did they go there? These are established and trusted communities that they know about.