Attention profiling is a technique for syndicating learned user attention data between web services to help highlight interesting content and filter out uninteresting items. It works by tracking what users do on sites like Digg, last.fm, and Delicious and turning that into usable attention data that can then be syndicated between sites. Open source frameworks like Midgard and Apache Mahout make it easy for services to support attention profiling and learn from user behavior to better serve users while respecting their privacy.

1. Attention Profiling
towards learning web services
Henri Bergius
http://bergie.iki.fi http://nemein.com

2. Infoglut
Information is out there, but who has
time to process it?

3. Web sites are stupid
You have to tell the same things to
every new service

4. Single-site learning is not
enough
...except if you're Amazon or Google

5. Attention Profiling
Syndicating the learned information
between web services

6. Learn from what user does
Image: Faraday Media

7. Turn it into usable attention data
Image: Faraday Media

8. Syndicate attention between sites
Image: Faraday Media

9. Digg
News items favourited

10. last.fm
What music you listen to

11. Yahoo! Delicious
Bookmarks

13. Ok, you've got attention
What then?

14. Highlight interesting items
quot;Open Source conference in
Tampere this weekquot;

15. Filter out uninteresting items
quot;Click here to also see the
'Microsoft' newsquot;

16. How to actually do it?
Midgard Apache Mahout
• LAMP framework • Java and Hadoop
• Attention profiling part of the • Industrial-strength machine
API learning
• Good for simple services • Cloud computing
• Out-of-the-box APML • Less out-of-the-box

17. There, problem solved
Your web service learns, reduces
infoglut, and serves the user better

18. Play nice
Let user know what is being tracked
Give user their own attention data
Allow history removal

19. Wrap-up
Attention profiling can make your service smarter
More and more APML sources are coming up
APML is easy to support via Open Source software
www.apml.org
www.dataportability.org
Henri Bergius http://bergie.iki.fi