Wordle

This is a word cloud created from the abstracts of all the talks at the workshop, combined with the comments from twitter tagged with the #socialnets_ws hashtag. Created at www.wordle.net

Horizon- Becoming Dataware - Richard Mortier (Nottingham University, Horizon Digital Economy Research)

Abstract: As we go about our lives, each of us creates and manages personal digital data about our online and real-world activities.  Horizon Digital Economy Research is an RCUK research hub investigating the many different challenges surrounding collection and exploitation of these personal contextual footprints.  Currently, many companies exploit our contextual footprints for their own gain, often without much explicit understanding or involvement on our part.  Building an ecosystem around exploitation of our contextual footprints that maintains acceptable levels of privacy, both when our data is being exploited individually and as part of a group, is key to enabling growth in value of our social and personal data.  After introducing Horizon, I will describe our initial steps toward a system in which we are trying to enable third parties to compute over personal data while providing individually acceptable privacy guarantees.

Bio: Mort (Richard Mortier) is a Horizon Transitional Fellow in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.  His research interests are currently focused around networked technologies connected with the Digital Economy.  In general he is interested in systems and networking, covering operating systems, distributed systems, and local and wide-area networking.  Prior to joining Nottingham he spent two years as founder at Vipadia Limited designing and building the Clackpoint and Karaka products, six years as a researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, and seven months as a visitor at Sprint ATL, CA. He received a Ph.D. from the Systems Research Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, and a B.A. in Mathematics, also from the University of Cambridge.

 

Industrial Symbiosis: Networking for Improved Environmental Performance -Teresa Domenech (UCL, Political Science)

Abstract: Industrial ecology has emerged as a body of knowledge that focuses on the possibilities of minimising the materials and energy requirement of the industrial sector, by transforming waste streams into valuable inputs, through the building of complex material and energy flow systems. Within this field, Industrial symbiosis (IS) explores the inter-company dimension in moving towards more closed-loop industrial systems, by looking at networks of industrial companies exchanging waste flows and sharing resources. Equally important for the practical implementation of IS initiatives as the study of the patterns material and energy flows within the industrial system, is the understanding of the organisational, institutional and social aspects that govern those material flows and the performance of the networks. Even given the potential economic and environmental benefits, the process of emergence and development of these networks seems far from straightforward. The effective operation of such networks relies heavily on aspects such as trust and general reciprocity. In this presentation I will explore the networking dynamics of IS networks and their contribution to innovation and to the triple bottom line of organisations. Aspects regarding the structure, morphology and patterns of coordination of these networks will be briefly reviewed. 

Bio: Teresa Domenech has a PhD on Industrial Symbiosis Networks awarded by the University College London (UCL). She is also research assistant at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (UCL) and coordinates the MSc module on Industrial Symbiosis. Her research interests cover the areas of industrial symbiosis, industrial ecology, innovation and environmental networks and, more widely, sustainability issues. She has taken part in a European funded project to research the applicability of industrial ecology and networking principles to the design of industrial estates and planning policies. She has also worked as environmental consultant providing assistance to industrial companie

Finding and Future Direction of the W3C Social Web Incubator Group (SWXG) - Mischa Tuffield (Garlik Ltd)

Abstract: As a W3C Incubator group (XG), the primary responsibility was to produce a final report summarising discussions with other groups, and was to propose a way forward for the W3C to participate productively in the wider Social Web ecosystem. The Incubator group has surveyed the landscape of community driven standards, focusing on the wider Social Web initiatives from outside the W3C, in order to facilitate future W3C efforts in and around the Social Web. The talk will start by defining the concepts of interest to the XG, followed by a description of the work undertaken by the group, and will hint at the future direction recommended by SWXG to the W3C.

Bio: Mischa Tuffield is a Researcher/Developer at Garlik, a UK based online identity startup, where his interests in Personal Information and Semantic Web meet. Mischa is an active member of the W3C, holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southampton, and an AI degree from the University of Edinburgh.

Authentication in the Social Web - Joseph Bonneau - University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory Security Group

Abstract: The growth of the social web and the large number of websites now including social features has introduced new demands for authentication and identity management online. Websites increasingly allow users to share all or some of their identity across websites, between sites and third party applications, and between non-browser clients and sites. This has brought new challenges for users, who are expected to maintain a large number of passwords and understand an increasingly complicated communications model to avoid fishing. This talk will discuss the complicated state of authentication on the web, from the "open pile" of OpenID, OAuth, Yadis, and others to proprietary protocols like Facebook Connect, Windows CardSpace, Google AuthSub, 3-D Secure and more.

Bio: Joseph Bonneau is a PhD candidate in the Security Group at the University of Cambridge, studying human authentication and the social web. He holds BS and MS degrees from Stanford University where he researched applied cryptography and side-channel cryptanalysis and worked as a cryptographer at Cryptography Research Inc. before moving to Cambridge.

Hermes: Clustering Users in Large-Scale E-mail Services - Christos Gkantsidis - Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK

Abstract: Hermes is an optimization engine for large-scale enterprise e-mail services. Such services could be hosted by a virtualized e-mail service provider, or by dedicated enterprise data centers. In both cases we observe that the pattern of e-mails between employees of an enterprise forms an implicit social graph. Hermes tracks this implicit social graph, periodically identifies clusters of strongly connected users within the graph, and co-locates such users on the same server. Co-locating the users reduces storage requirements: senders and recipients who reside on the same server can share a single copy of an e-mail. Co-location also reduces inter-server bandwidth usage. We evaluate Hermes using a trace of all e-mails within a major corporation over a five month period. The e-mail service supports over 120,000 users on 68 servers. Our evaluation shows that using Hermes results in storage savings of 37% and bandwidth savings of 50% compared to current approaches. The overheads are low: a single commodity server can run the optimization for the entire system.

Bio: Christos is a researcher in the Systems and Networking Group in Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK. He holds a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, and bachelors from University of Patras, Greece, both in computer science. He is interested in content distribution networks, peer-to-peer technologies, analysis and modelling of complex communication networks, and wireless mesh networking. Christos is a member of IEEE and ACM.

The Best Advice Does Not Always Come From Your Friends - Andrew J Scott - Rummble

Abstract: Recommendation services have been in existence for years, yet so few –if any- consumer services deliver truly personalised recommendations. Rummble was created to solve that problem. Andrew will explain why and how he created Rummble to do that and the bumps along the way.

Bio: Andrew is Founder/CEO of Rummble, an internet company which personalises the physical world to your tastes, via your mobile phone. A passionate advocate of everything mobile, Rummble is his sixth technology start-up. After publishing an Atari ST fanzine at age fourteen, Andrew started his first company in 1989 and went on to run a successful web development company through the dot com years serving blue chip clients, which he sold in 2000. There he developed larger scale web sites including world’s first online digital video news archive (www.BritishPathe.com) with sister company Cambridge Imaging, which contained thousands of hours of video and over 12 million images. Other start-ups have included an interactive personal fitness website (InTraining) with Olympian Dave Morgan, a CRM and marketing startup (TelephoneWizard), the UK’s first interactive SMS flirting service (DinnerDateAuctions) and Europe’s first location based social network (playtxt). With 20+ years in technology, Andrew also sits on the board of UnLtdWorld (an online platform which connects and empowers social entrepreneurs), Tiramizoo (a local delivery platform), 1541 (an entrepreneur group) and is a founding member of www.mlove.com . He is active in the European start-up community, splitting the bulk of his time between London and San Francisco.