MOBILE SOCIAL SOFTWARE

timeline

Historical

roots

State of

the art

Future

prospects

Giuseppe Lugano

giuseppe.lugano@nokia.com

Aalto University, 25.11.20101

Something about me...

1. Camerino 2. Bologna 3. Helsinki 3. Jyväskylä

2000

Erasmus

exchange in

Helsinki

2002

Master’s thesis

on educational

technology

2003

MSc Computer

Science, Univ. of

Bologna

Visiting

researcher

at HIIT

2004-08 2005-2010 2010

Researcher at

TeliaSonera

PhD Cognitive

Science, Univ. of

Jyväskylä

Intern at Nokia

Research Center

Helsinki

From Educational Technology to

Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo)My Research path

2003 2007 2010

Educational technology

Mobile communication

Digital communities and MoSoSo

PART I

HISTORICAL ROOTS

4

Evolution of mobile

communicationFrom communication tool to ”Digital Swiss-Knife”

5

Historical

roots

2005 -2.5G 2010 - 3G

1982 – 1G 1996 – 2G

Mobile2.0Mobile2.0

Mobile1.0Mobile1.0

Timeline

2G1991 - 2001

2G1991 - 2001

2005 –

3G and beyond

2005 –3G and beyond

1G: Cellular network, call hand-off, non-digital

standards, early mobile phones, voice services

0G: Mobile radio telephony, walkie-talkies, landline telephony (wired, cordless), pagers

1G: Cellular network, call hand-off, non-digital

standards, early mobile phones, voice services

0G: Mobile radio telephony, walkie-talkies, landline telephony (wired, cordless), pagers

2G: Digital standard (GSM), Roaming, SIM,

devices add features, data services (SMS, WAP)

2G: Digital standard (GSM), Roaming, SIM,

devices add features, data services (SMS, WAP)

3G: Digital convergence, broadband mobile

connectivity, Smartphones, GPS, touch

interfaces, mobile Internet, video-calls, mobile tv,

Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo)

3G: Digital convergence, broadband mobile

connectivity, Smartphones, GPS, touch

interfaces, mobile Internet, video-calls, mobile tv,

Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo)

0G & 1G

1960 - 1991

0G & 1G1960 - 1991

Mobile social networking,

Large-scale mobilizations

(e.g. smartmobs, flashmobs)

Digital communities

2.5G: Camera integration, Bluetooth, MMS, Color

screens, larger memories

2.5G: Camera integration, Bluetooth, MMS, Color

screens, larger memories

Tecnological Innovations

2.5G

2001 – 2005

2.5G

2001 – 2005

Interpersonal

communication

& small group

coordination

Evolution of mobile communication

6

Historical

roots

Social scope

Mobile2.0 is about convergence

Mobile

Services 2G 2.5G 3G Web 1.5Web 2.0 Web 1.0

Phone

callSMS

MMS

MoSoSoMoSoSo

Email

Mailing-listsNewsgroups

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)Internet Forum

Instant Messaging (IM)Blogs WikisOnline social networks

Video

calls

WAP

Social

Software

’60s –’80s ’90s 2000 - ’60s –’80s’90s2005 -NOWNOW

MoSoSo is the outcome of the technological convergence between mobile

services and social software, which implies social convergence as well

1G

Historical

roots

Mo

bile

2.0

Before the turn of Millennium: CMC, Groupware, CSCW & CSCL

• There are several ancestors of MoSoSo

– Computer-Mediated-Communication(CMC): computers regarded since ‘70s

not only as information processing tools, but also as communication devices

– Groupware: digital technologies used for supporting collaborative social

interactions in formal activity contexts like schools, educational institutes,

institutions and organizations

• Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL): collaborative environments

for learning communities

• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): knowledge sharing,

cooperative processes in organizations

• Solid academic tradition of CMC and Groupware

• Boundaries and differentiating factors between Groupware,

social software and MoSoSo has never been clearly established

8

Historical

roots

2002-2003: Smartmobs & Social Software

• Howard Rheingold, who also coined the term virtual

community, publishes an influential book titled

Smartmobs – the next social revolution

• Instead of MoSoSo, Rheingold coins the term smart

mob technology, an amplifier for human cooperation

but also a potential always-on panopticon

• The author provides several examples of ways in

which MoSoSo would impact societal changes (e.g.

mass mobilization via SMS against President Estrada

in the Philippines)

• Clay Shirky coins the term social software in his blog

9

Historical

roots

2004: term MoSoSo is coined

• First papers on MoSoSo by Dan Melinger, CEO of Socialight

“Mobile social software is social software designed for use while mobile. This

includes software that augments human social or collaborative abilities by

supporting group communication […] MoSoSo represents more than merely a

grafting of social software onto mobile devices. When running these types of

applications on a mobile platform, the usage models for the applications take on

quite different characteristics from their non-mobile counterparts”

• Melinger’s papers are not considered very significant. They are

seldom quoted in MoSoSo literature.

– His contribution demonstrates that the origins of MoSoSo are closer to

business than academic contexts

• Timo Arnall creates a well-known list of MoSoSo on his blog

10

Historical

roots

2005: MoSoSo gains popularity

• Several academic projects and articles on MoSoSo

– Reality Mining project at MIT Media Lab: Nathan Eagle publishes “Social serendipity:

mobilizing social software”, the most quoted paper on MoSoSo

– Within the Context project at the University of Helsinki/HIIT, Antti Oulasvirta, Mika

Raento and colleagues analyze the social implications of ContextContacts, a MoSoSo

enhancing social awareness through the disclosure of contextual cues

– Papers from Churchill and Smith review the state of the art of MoSoSo, connecting it

to social network analysis / social networking sites

– Digidress/Nokia Sensor, a MoSoSo for identity expression and social proximity

interaction from Jan Blom, Younghee Jung and Per Persson

11

Historical

roots

ContextContacts Digidress/Nokia Sensor

2005: MoSoSo gains popularity

• Increasing coverage on specialized media

– Wired publishes a column on MoSoSo titled “MoSoSo not So-So” defining MoSoSo as

“the mobile equivalents of online social networks like Friendster and LinkedIn. They

help users find old friends, or potential new ones, on the go”

– Related trends: Tim O’Reilly popularizes the notion of Web2.0, and the term social

media gets increasingly popular

• MoSoSo startups launched

– Dennis Crowley, founder and CEO of Dodgeball, presents Dodgeball, a MoSoSo that

“encourages users to opt-in with their location via text messaging in order to

broadcast their whereabouts to their friends, look for nearby friends-of-friends or

hook up with nearby crushes”

• In the same year, Dodgeball was acquired by Google, which integrated Dodgeball

technology in its Google Latitude service in 2009

• Crowley left Google in 2007 to create Foursquare, a service launched in 2009, which shares

many similarities with Dodgeball

– Other startups: Playtxt, Jambo Networks, Plazes (acquired by Nokia in 2008)

12

Historical

roots

2006: peak of popularity for MoSoSo

• Scott Counts (Microsoft), Henri ter

Hofte (Telematica Instituut) and Ian

Smith (Intel) organize the workshop

“Mobile Social Software: realizing

potential, managing risks” at CHI, the

most important conference on Human-

Computer Interaction

• My first paper on MoSoSo: “Designing

people’s interconnections in mobile

social networks”, which is based on a

technical report done in 2004 at the

Corporate R&D of TeliaSonera Finland13

Historical

roots

2007: end of the MoSoSo hype phase

• Web2.0 and social media rapidly replace MoSoSo as emerging trends

– MoSoSo is soon archived as an “unfinished” revolution

• At an academic level, several interesting papers are published

– The first critical analysis of MoSoSo is published by Thom-Santelli, who underlines the

current limitations of MoSoSo, defined as an entertainment gadget with little utility

– Kolko explores the potential of MoSoSo for the developing world, overcoming the

common idea that MoSoSo is suitable only for densely populated developed cities

– Lugano provides the first systematic definition of MoSoSo and connects its most

promising applications to social capital theory. In another paper, he suggests an

approach to MoSoSo privacy challenges

• My definition from 2007 (also reported in Wikipedia page on MoSoSo):

“MoSoSo is a class of mobile applications whose scope is to support social

interaction among interconnected individuals”14

Historical

roots

2008: early signs of MoSoSo maturity

• Development of MoSoSo as an interdisciplinary research area continues

– Heyer publishes the first thesis on the topic: “MoSoSo: the design, implementation

and usage of a system for mobile group communication, coordination and sharing”

– Humphreys publishes in the Journal of CMC a widely quoted case study on Dodgeball

– Lugano explains how the network approach allows moving from the theory to the

practice of MoSoSo design

• At a commercial level, the term MoSoSo is not used much, but social

networking services are increasingly accessed on mobile devices

– A study from ABI Research predicts that online social networking going mobile would

be one of the strongest growth trends, leading to 140 million users by 2013

15

Historical

roots

2009 & 2010: MoSoSo as part of Mobile2.0

• The popularity of smartphones and the powerful

trend of mobile apps open the era of the Mobile2.0

– Wired declares that the Web is dead because it is evolving

towards from an open-ended platform to more close and

proprietary interconnected ecosystems, increasingly accessed

through specialized mobile apps

• MoSoSo is connected to the wider trend of digital

convergence, which encompasses technological,

economic, cultural and social meanings

– In his PhD thesis “Digital community design”, Lugano presents

a conceptualization and holistic design model of MoSoSo,

arguing that its role is to enable and to empower self-

organizing digital communities

16

Historical

roots

Summary of MoSoSo

• Still a young technology

• Significant both

academically and

commercially

• Multiple contributions

and overlapping trends

17

Historical

roots

CSCL

Virtual/Online

communities

Groupware

Web2.0

Social

media

Online social

networks

Mobile2.0

Context-Aware

Computing

Social

software

Social

computing

CSCW

MoSoSo

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

“hype phase”

interest

fades off

maturity?

PART II

STATE OF THE ART

18

What is MoSoSo today?

• There are three main types of MoSoSo

19

State of

the art

What is MoSoSo for…?

• Friend-finders (e.g. Dodgeball, Nokia Sensor)

• Mobile dating applications (e.g. Lovegety, MeetMoi)

• Pervasive urban gaming (e.g. Human Pacman)

Typical users: teenagers / young adults living in cities and with active social lives

Typical usage contexts: bars, clubs, streets, large-scale events (e.g. concerts)

Social proximity applications let users “scan” the social environment through sensors

State of

the art

What is MoSoSo for…?

• Mobile access to online social networks (e.g. Facebook)

• Social aggregators: access to multiple social networks at once (eg. Funnelry)

• Mobile media sharing: single update to multiple social media sites (eg. Shozu)

• Presence-enhanced mobile phone-book (e.g. ContextContacts)

Social awareness applications let users share their “life feeds” with social networks

Historical

roots

Foursquare

• Foursquare is a MoSoSo created in 2009

by Dennis Crowley, who also invented

Dodgeball

• Foursquare can be used anywhere in the

world and has currently 4 million

registered users

• Users voluntarily disclose their locations

by “checking-in” at venues

– Users frequently checking-in at a venue can

become “mayors” and earn “badges” (social

status incentives) and get discounts or offers

from business partners (economic incentive)

– Users can have their check-ins posted in

Facebook and/or Twitter22

State of

the art

MoSoSo of the year?• Webby Award 2010 as best

mobile social network

• App of the Year 2010 in the T3

Gadget Awards

• 2011 Technology Pioneer

nomination by the World Economic

Forum in ICT category

MoSoSo of the year?• Webby Award 2010 as best

mobile social network

• App of the Year 2010 in the T3

Gadget Awards

• 2011 Technology Pioneer

nomination by the World Economic

Forum in ICT category

Foursquare

• Similarly to Facebook, Foursquare raises significant concerns for

personal privacy and security

– There have been cases of stalking through Foursquare

– Wired reported how hacker captured 875k check-ins by exploiting privacy hole

• The game-like mechanisms of Foursquare are exploited to

overcome users’ traditional resistance towards location-sharing

– By removing this barrier and combining it with special discounts, Foursquare

manages to unlock the commercial potential of the application by turning

users into marketers (e.g. invite other friends to check-in to get points needed

to have a personal discount)

23

State of

the art

Gowalla

• Gowalla lets users check-in to collect

“passports”, a collection of stamps of

the places they visit.

– Pins, personal achievements in e.g. trips,

are attached to passports

– Users can attach photos, comments to

passports and connect places to people

– Like in Foursquare, virtual items offering

rewards and special offers can be

discovered while “exploring” the world

24

State of

the art

Facebook Places

• Facebook Places is the new feature of Facebook that connects

location-sharing to local deals via friends

– Based on Foursquare concept of “checking-in”

– Through the “Deals” feature, Facebook connects its business strategy to

the transactions mediated by Facebook with commercial partners

25

State of

the art

Summary

• Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places represent

the current state of the art of MoSoSo

– The basic idea of these MoSoSo is the same: engage users in

location-sharing by offering a mobile social game, while enjoying

revenues from commercial partners

– Mechanisms to protect users’ privacy and security exist, but recent

cases demonstrate that they are far from optimal

– As expected, the potential of MoSoSo is used for attaining the goal

of economic growth, while societal development remains a

secondary objective

• Can we do better? What may be the future paths of

MoSoSo development?26

State of

the art

PART III

FUTURE PROSPECTS

27

Designing MoSoSo for Sustainable Futures

“How do you navigate an unsteady economy, a future without

cheap oil, and unimaginable changes in the climate?”

(YesMagazine 55, 2010)

28

We need to become skilled equilibrists to

maintain/restore balance in our lives despite sudden

disruptions, shocks or systemic changes

Gowalla, Foursquare and Facebook Places do not help us

in achieving this objective because the are conceived for

a stable society enjoying continuous economic growth

Future

prospects

MoSoSo as critical element of the “balancing pole”

The real potential of Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo) consists in the

creative use of information and/or resources embedded in one’s social

network to address contextual needs

Unfortunately, the current conceptualization and design of

MoSoSo does not fully exploit this potential

Future

prospects

MoSoSo for Sustainability Innovations

• MoSoSo needs to evolve from stand-alone entertainment gadget to

a general-purpose platform enabling and empowering self-

organizing digital communities

• Community has always been about sharing

30

• Traditionally: shared territory and/or feelings of

solidarity

• Currently: “content-based” communities digitally

sharing tangible/intangible resources

• MoSoSo is not only about finding a nearby friend, sharing photos

of a birthday party or getting access to special discounts or offers

– it is especially a powerful tool for using bits to share atoms

Future

prospects

Emerging trend: “using bits to share atoms”

• Early phase of Web2.0 has been about (co-)creation, sharing and

use of user-generated content (UGC) mostly for information and

entertainment purposes

• The current trend is about co-creation, provision and

consumption of community-generated services (CGS) satisfying

basic needs in a cost-efficient, transparent and environmental-

friendly manner

31

Future

prospects

“Using bits to share atoms”: a recent case

• In April 2010, the Icelandic ash cloud caused severe

disruptions to airplane traffic

• Alternatives for completing a journey (trains, buses,

car rentals) became hard to obtain and expensive

because of speculations

• Instead of fighting for gaining exclusive access to

scarce resources, passengers self-organized in small

groups

• Through mobile access to Facebook, passengers

managed to quickly and cheaply “design” a digital

community and implement an efficient ad-hoc car-

sharing service 32

Future

prospects

Other grassroots initiatives

• Sharing homes

– HomeExchange.com: “make yourself at home…anywhere in the world”

– Couchsurfing.com: 2,2M members couchsurfing in 78k cities

• Sharing vehicles/rides

– Zimride.com: Community-powered sustainable transportation

– Greenriders.com: Finnish trust-based ride sharing solution

• Sharing objects/tools

– Zilok.com: location-based peer-to-peer renting

– Swap.com: “swapping saves your money and saves the planet”

• Sharing knowledge

– Skillshare: local meet-ups where people share their personal expertise

– Carrotmob.org: consumer activism supporting socially responsible

companies

– Nokia Green Explorer: share tips and advices on greener cities and lifestyles33

Future

prospects

The future: next-generation MoSoSo

• Until now, MoSoSo mostly designed for entertainment and socialization,

and with specific use cases/social groups in mind (e.g. Nokia Sensor)

• To “unlock human potential”, next-generation MoSoSo should follow the

path of the WWW, a general-purpose social platform in which “anything

can be linked to anything” (Berners-Lee, 1999 p.4)

34

MoSoSo as “magic box”

• Economic profits still possible, but should be

realized as a “side-effects” of wider strategies for

societal development

• Principle for next-generation MoSoSo: designing

MoSoSo for enabling and empowering a self-

organizing network-based civil society

Future

prospects

MoSoSo and the future: towards a

network-based civil society

• The informal and evolving network of self-organizing digital

communities form a network-based civil society

• Citizens participating to the network-based civil society are a

precious resource for realizing more sustainable societies

Future

prospects

Sustainability: MoSoSo helps building resilience

• From resilient materials and products….

• …to resilient lives, ecosystems, organizations and societies

Future

prospects

Conclusions

• We are living in a historical period of profound transformation

• Role of MoSoSo: contribute to the goal of sustainable living bypromoting grassroots social change and building resilience in people’s lives, businesses and societies

• Existing MoSoSo not suitable for addressing current and future challenges

Climate changeGlobal ageing

Resouce depletionEconomic crisis

Future

prospects

THANK YOU!

KIITOS!

38

For more INFO ABOUT MOSOSO

SEND ME AN EMAIL (giuseppe.lugano@nokia.com)

OR CHECK http://digitalcommunity.cosix.it