A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Lessons Learnt From FOAF: A Bottom-Up Approach To Social Networks Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath UKOLN is supported by: About This Talk This talk introduces FOAF, describes the advantages & disadvantages of a grassroots approach to development and ponders on the wider implications. About This Talk This talk introduces FOAF, describes the advantages & disadvantages of a grassroots approach to development and ponders on the wider implications.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 Contents Background – The Semantic Web What Is FOAF? Relevance Of FOAF To This Conference And Session The Development Culture Behind FOAF The Limitations Wider Implications

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 About The Semantic Web (1) The Semantic Web: Why is it needed? The Semantic Web is needed is order to provide a more structured Web in which resources can be brought together for a variety of purposes What is it? The Semantic Web can be regarded as a global distributed database, which can be developed without central coordination

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 About The Semantic Web (2) The Semantic Web: How is it done? The Semantic Web is an XML application which contains a simple mathematical model which defines relationships which are defined using a URI What are the challenges? The Semantic Web is perceived as difficult to understand. These apparent difficulties provide a barrier to its deployment.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 Is It Difficult? The mathematical model behind the Semantic Web is based on simple tuples, as illustrated Is this really conceptually difficult? The relationship ('knows' in this case) is defined at a URI Brian knows Leigh UKOLN works at xxx Has phone no. FOAF paper DC.Created by Leigh Brian

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 FOAF – A Simple SW Application FOAF: Stands for "Friend Of A Friend" Provides structured links about individuals Information distributed & extensible Avoids data protection concerns Me, , work place, friends … Leigh, , … location, interests friends Leigh's friend 1 Leigh's friend n My friend 1 My friend n

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 FOAF Example (1) FOAF Explorer - A view of my FOAF file, showing links to my friends Further information in my FOAF file Leigh's FOAF file, showing his additional information

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 FOAF Example (2) FOAFNaut -

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 My Aims SW Promotion Promote use of FOAF as a lightweight Semantic Web application Enable people to be part of the Semantic Web Community-Building Use a FOAF application which supports community-building at events Implementation Joint work with local FOAF geek (Leigh Dodds) Development of tools Use of tools (at IWMW 2004) Paper presented at IADIS WBC 2004

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 Creating FOAF Several types of FOAF authoring tools provided: Do it by hand Web-based tools Dedicated tools A Wiki (experimental)

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 A FOAF Application We've got : Powerful standards (RDF/FOAF) Simple authoring tools What we need now is: Application area to encourage uptake Richer tools for data-mining Application: Who attended JISC-CETIS conf 2004? Who's going to JISC-CETIS conf 2005? Who's going and is interested in LIP, LOM, real ale, … Background: Addressed previously but application-specific 

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12 FOAFNaut FOAFNaut application is being extended to include visualisation of events data

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 Review: FOAF And Events We explored using events (conferences, seminars, etc.) to promote SW take-up: Delegates often want to establish links with people they meet (cf. use of business cards) Encouraging delegates to create their own data gets them motivated This also avoids data protection concerns and places maintenance of individual Use at technical conferences also provides: Feedback Opportunity to get developers engaged in further work

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14 What Next? What can happen next: Further promotion of this concept at other events Encouragement for additional development: Dedicated viewing tools Search facilities … Brian Leigh IADIS WBC 2004 XML 2004 Beyond Browsing Find we people who attended WBC 2004 and XML 2004 who have an interest in xxx Beyond Browsing Find we people who attended WBC 2004 and XML 2004 who have an interest in xxx

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 What Happened? Take-up Promoted at IWMW 2004 (flyer in pack) But few delegates used (& they were the techies) Technologies FOAFNaut support for events has still not been included in main version Wiki authoring tool hacked People Develop had other commitments

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 16 Reflections Some thoughts: Privacy issues Branding issues ('he's not my friend') Getting beyond the early adopters Is FOAF more appropriate back-stage (e.g. export format in Blogs)? Do we want shrink-wrapped solutions (e.g. Orkut)? Is the interest in the technology too far away from users' needs? Has FOAF been a failure or a success?

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 17 Discussion Questions., comments, etc. welcome