Augmented Social Network Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster Prepared by: Kiran Gollu

Problem  Online community(aka social networks) tools have been very powerful. But… can we extend more? Extend communication across social networks? What are the challenges? Communities are becoming walled castles!

What is ASN? ASN vision is to build identity and trust into the architecture of the Internet, in the public interest, in order to facilitate introductions between people who share affinities or complementary capabilities across social networks.

ASN: High-level goals  Find others with whom you share affinities  Share relevant information & media with one another  Establish persistent online identity (to establish Internet as a platform for trust)  Self-organize and more easily form alliance with our neighbors

How would ASN enhance online user experience?

Scenario1: Finding others who share affinities JimBob Organic farming Solar energy1 Solar energy2  Jim needs some help with his new project on solar energy. Jim does not contact Bob. (Both Jim and Bob are unaware of that both of them are part of solar energy community) Solution: Using persistent identity, Jim would be able to discover Bob’s is involved in solar energy2 and make a solicitation.

Scenario2: Links between communities with common interests  Jim solar energy team needs some expert suggestion on solar cells! In Bob’s solar community, an expert has posted solution but specific vocabulary doesn’t match  Solution: design a sophisticated scheme that doesn't depend on the specific language so that search query returns results(arguable?) With the system of interoperable communities, automatically send query to Bob’s community and directly seek answer from specific expert JimBob Organic farming Solar energy1 Solar energy2

Scenario3: Media forwarded from trusted sources  Jim’s group => journalism, Bob’s group => technical  Jim’s group member conducts interview with important solar engineer and decide to make it available on net. (with current community systems, its unlikely that Bob’s group will be aware of this)  Solution: Automatically forward the interview from Jim to Bob and in turn to interested members in Bob’s group. Issues - lot of unnecessary forwarding even though it’s trusted? Spam filtering? JimBob Organic farming Solar energy1 Solar energy2

Scenario4: Automated personal Introductions across communities  Bob’s solar group want to test an implementation of solar cells in small south American village.  Solution: with persistent identity, interoperable communities and brokered relationships, Bob would be able to discover Jim knows Sam and automated system connects Bob with Sam. The system allows Sam to evaluate Bob’s reputation! JimBob Organic farming Solar energy1 Solar energy2 Sam South America Village Network

Scenario5: Brokered personal Introductions across communities  Same as scenario 4 but Bob’s approached Sam because of his highly prized relationship with Mayor of village!  Solution: sophisticated brokering mechanisms are required to instill trust Sam could be approached by an trusted brokering service that endorses the reputation of Bob. JimBob Organic farming Solar energy1 Solar energy2 Sam South America Village Network

ASN Technical components

 Persistent Identity  Interoperability between communities  Matching technologies  Brokered relationships

Persistent online identity  In real life, when you go from one virtual milieu to another, your identity will acquire history Why not the same for online identity? Why do we have to restate our interests are, Who we know?  As of now, sites are using identities are used mostly for commercial interests Amazon’s track record of your financial transactions  Identity should not be recited to what our purchase interest are (we can not be reduced to what we buy!)

Persistent online identity  Propose a new civil society digital profile Should be multifarious and ambiguous expresses your affinities and capabilities gives people high control over identity  Some Industry initiatives: Liberty Alliance Project, Microsoft Passport  Issues: How about managing digital profile?? Securing digital profile is going to be prime concern

Why would communication across groups create added value? LawSarnofMetcalfeGFN (Reed) Optional Transactions Tune In Broadcast Connect Peers Join/Create Groups Examples OnSale, Remote Access Yahoo! Classifieds, eBay, Chat Rooms Value of N member netNN2N2 2N2N Combined Value of N, M member nets N + MN 2 + M 2 + 2NM2 N x 2 M Networks that support construction of groups can create value that scales exponential with network size But as the network size grows larger, identifying affinities gets difficult.

ASN community functionality  Requires writing and adoption of interoperable protocols to enable communication between different communities  Reputation is also important! No universal reputation rather community specific

Matching Framework  Allows for matching even when exact language does not correspond  Two ways: Creation of knowledge maps  Focused efforts to ensure ontologies and taxonomies follow XML/RDF format etc. Tacit knowledge  Automatically inferring from your past history (user’s online behavior)  Amazon’s recommender system

Brokering Services  Act as trusted third parties to enable communication between two people  Introduction protocols form the key  Plain vanilla Introduction protocol A is looking for some information that B has Automatic agent detects this using ontological framework Automatic agent informs B about this. B could then take action accordingly.  Customized brokering protocols

In summary…  The ASN would create strategically placed "doors" between online community infrastructures, which today act like "walled castles."

Key takeaways  Concept of Persistent identity Building trust into the Internet can have significant advantages Maintaining such a digital profile would a big a challenge though?  One could exploit sharing across social networks for better benefits  Brokering services could be useful for communications across social networks Introduction protocols play a vital role

Backup