With a Little Help from My Friends:Personalization via Friendsourcing

Michael BernsteinMIT CSAIL

MIT HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

Information OverloadNew York TimesFacebookTwitterEngadgetSlashdotFfffound!xkcdPostSecretCake WrecksCamels and ChocolateStereogumTelevision without PityFat CyclistLifehackerCute OverloadGawkerConfessions of a Pioneer WomanDiggReddit

Information OverloadNu

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Relevance to You0

Exhibit Transforms Your Spreadsheet into an Interactive Web Page

Lifehacker

Humanities Ph.D.s Are Anticipating Hard Times

New York Times

An Open Letter to Lance Armstrong(UPDATED x 3)

Fat Cyclist

It Was All Gravy Until Meningitis Came Into Play

Camels and Chocolate

Social FilteringE-mail

Social Networks

To: Michael Bernstein <msbernst@mit.edu>From: Rob Miller rcm@mit.edu

Interesting article about a designer who jumped ship from Google to Twitter because he felt shackled by all the A-B testing.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10ping.html

Your friends, family and colleagues know your interests, activities, and personality.

Friendsourcing:Your friends, family and colleagues know your interests, activities, and personality – and use it to help you.

Active Information Seekers

Survey Investigation N = 100

• Are the people who spend time seeking web content also sharing it?

“I rely on tools that aggregate popular web content from many sources: for example, Google News, Google Reader or Digg.”

“I often seek out entertaining posts, jokes, comics and videos using the internet.”

“I spend a large amount of free time viewing web content.”

“I often tell people I know about my favorite web sites to follow.”

“When I see something I like on the internet, my first thought is often, ‘Who else would enjoy seeing this?’”

“I often post interesting web content to public places like my IM status, my Facebook profile, or Digg.”

Yes: Sharers are Seekers• Over 50% of an

individual’s interestin sharing wasexplained by theirinterest in seekingR2 = .53, p < .001

• Social capitalhas an almost negligible effectAdj. R2 = .55

FeedMe• Designed to facilitate and amplify the

sharing process• Foregrounds sharing and suggests

friends who might be interested in posts being read

• Concern: it can be difficult to judge relevance, and it’s work to send an e-mail

• FeedMe: Lowers the relevance and effort barriers

• Concern: what if I spam my friends?• FeedMe: makes visible relevant

information

FeedMe

Recommend to:msbernst@mit.edu rcm@mit.edu1 today 0 today Send

rcm@mit.edu0 today

rcm@mit.edu10 today

Vector Space Model

design: 184tweet: 170web: 79

twitter: 48social: 43friendfeed:

32blog: 25

developer: 23

sports: 200baseball: 150

sox: 132lacrosse: 89workout: 41muscle: 30hiking: 23vitamin: 22

New post:

Friend A:

Friend B:

Ongoing work• Palo Alto Research Center

Can we help business and individuals create and manage huge amounts of friend feed information?

x 100

To: Michael Bernstein <msbernst@mit.edu>From: Rob Miller <rcm@mit.edu>, David Karger <karger@mit.edu>,

Adam Marcus <marcua@mit.edu>Cc: Naveen Sharma <naveen.sharma@xerox.com>

Michael, you should probably check this out ...