Augmented Social Network

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

2. 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!

3. 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.

4. 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

5. How would ASN enhance online user experience?

6. Scenario1: Finding others who share affinities • 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) Jim Bob Solar energy1 Solar energy2 Organic farming Solution: Using persistent identity, Jim would be able to discover Bob’s is involved in solar energy2 and make a solicitation.

7. 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 Scenario2: Links between communities with common interests Jim Bob Solar energy1 Organic farming Solar energy2

8. 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? Scenario3: Media forwarded from trusted sources Jim Bob Solar energy1 Organic farming Solar energy2

9. 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! Scenario4: Automated personal Introductions across communities Jim Bob Sam South America Village Network Solar energy2 Organic farming Solar energy1

10. 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. Scenario5: Brokered personal Introductions across communities Jim Bob Sam South America Village Network Solar energy2 Organic farming Solar energy1

11. ASN Technical components

12. ASN Technical components • Persistent Identity • Interoperability between communities • Matching technologies • Brokered relationships

13. 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!)

14. 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

15. Why would communication across groups create added value? 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.

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

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

20. 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

21. Backup