Paper Reading #21: SocialSearchBrowser: a novel mobile search and information discovery tool

Comments:

TBD

Reference Information:

Title: SocialSearchBrowser: a novel mobile search and information discovery tool

Authors:  Karen Church, Joachim Neumann, Mauro Cherubini, and Nuria Oliver of Telefonica Research, Barcelona, Spain

Presentation Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:

The researchers are interested in exploring new ways in which to expand the usage of social media. To this end, they are proposing a research project they are dubbing the SocialSearchBrowser. This new technology is designed to take advantage of the way in which humans are utilizing mobile networking schemes.

In this exploratory paper, the researchers gained preliminary results into insights based on trials using the Social Search Browser in a mobile networking situation. Their ultimate goal is to improve the way in which humans are utilizing this space by taking certain key mobile contexts and analyzing how they interact with the social space.

Discussion:

I think that this has certain interesting implications. Currently, I find that search on Facebook is somewhat lacking when I want to search people based on differing criteria, such as demographic information. It would make my life easier if I could search using key words that represent my interests. MySpace was easier to find people with some of those similar interests, and this is probably the only area where I will concede that MySpace had any edge on Facebook.

That being said, I would find it beneficial to have improved tools to help me navigate and utilize the social search space to optimum potential usage. I find that I enjoy using some of these social tools to keep track of friends, family, and colleagues as well as finding and retaining new contacts. Hopefully this can help mobile computing devices in the same way that is has other platforms.