The document discusses Plagger, an open-source RSS/Atom aggregation platform that allows users to create customized feed applications by combining various plugin modules. It provides examples of how Plagger can be used to build applications for tasks like aggregating multiple feeds into a planet, downloading YouTube videos from RSS feeds, and transforming a Bloglines subscription into a Gmail feed. The document outlines the different types of plugin modules available in Plagger and provides specific examples for subscription, aggregation, filtering, publishing and notification plugins.

1. Designing for Social Sharing Rashmi Sinha www.uzanto.com www.rashmisinha.com

2. Plagger – RSS/Atom remixing platform Tatsuhiko Miyagawa [email_address] Six Apart, Ltd. / Shibuya Perl Mongers YAPC::NA 2006 Chicago

3. What is Plagger?

4. Pl uggable RSS/Atom Agg regato r

5. Pl atform for Aggr egation / remixing

6. Whatever

7. Speaking of RSS/Atom aggregator

8. Who here is using Bloglines? (or any other web-based aggregators)

9. Who here thinks that it sucks?

10. Customer-Centered Design at HP Nancy L. Clark & Craig B. Neely

11. Overview Why is Customer-Centered Design important? HP Customer-Centered Design Services (CCDS): Who are we? Overview: Where we fit in the Product Development Process Case Study: Designing a complex application suite Case Study: Merger of Compaq and HP support web sites

12. Why is Customer-Centered Design Important?

13. HP Customer-Centered Design Services (CCDS): Who we are Center of competency in customer research and designing user interfaces, with facilities around the country Staff educated and experienced in cognitive & physiological disciplines Centralized resource for HP design teams who do not have research, design, & testing skills Primary value add to HP design teams: Improve development process by bringing HP design teams together, creating a common product vision Bring target users of products together with design teams to define, design, develop customer-centered products

14. Product Development Process: Overview Our Focus: User analysis, requirements Product definition, design, & development for ease of use and usefulness Other Elements of the Customer Experience: Ordering, delivery Documentation Installation Integration with 3 rd party products Customer Support

15. Case Study: Designing a Complex Application Suite Storage Network Management Challenges Very large scale, distributed networks – thousands of devices, huge amounts of data Very complex to manage Need continuous, reliable access to critical business data Imagine a hard drive crash! Real-time monitoring Fast troubleshooting

16. Case Study: Designing a Complex Application Suite Challenges: Vague product concept Customers’ priorities? Developing a shared vision Solutions: Customer focus groups Designed sketchy prototypes, customers filled in blanks Value: Requirements, shared vision Not just a launch point for management applications! Network representation View of business apps, data Planning

17. Case Study: Designing a Complex Application Suite Challenges What details do users need and expect? Requirements risks: incomplete, failure to confirm Solutions: Refined prototypes with more details Iterative research to define next level of detail Value: Details for info & task flow (e.g. status, clicking behavior) Avoided costly re-design Requirements

18. Case Study: Designing a Complex Application Suite Challenges: Complex: hundreds of details Tradeoffs: ease of use versus development cost Solutions: Iterative user interface design, prototyping, testing UI specification, evaluation Cross-suite style guide Value: Continuous user focus keeps design usable and aligned with requirements Cross-team coordination to ensure unified design Design

19. Case Study: Designing a Complex Application Suite Challenges: Meeting users’ requirements? Unanticipated design issues Solutions: User interviews: key features Numerous usability tests Structured expert review Ongoing design consulting Value: Customer-centered answers to design questions Usability evaluation of actual product Iterative Development

20. Case Study: Designing a Complex Application Suite Challenges: Is the product easy to install and use? Does it meet customers’ real world needs? Solutions: Interviews with HP specialists in the field Customer visits, interviews Value of Usability Data: Identify gaps between user needs and actual product Focuses next version require-ments on customer needs Post-Release

21. Case Study: HP.com Support The Challenges: Provide continuous, reliable, unified web access to tech support from HP and Compaq Combine two approaches to online support delivery via the web while meeting expectations of both groups of customers Combine independent HP and Compaq Usability Groups as part of overall merger of eSupport program Focus on customer needs, not political and technical challenges

22. Case Study: HP.com Support Challenges: Requirements handed down by merger planners 2 distinct interaction models Solutions: Validate requirements via fast prototyping, early testing Iterative design & testing Combined team, web repository for shared work Value: Retain customer loyalty by working toward a single, unified support site as an indication of HP’s focus on the customer Design

23. Case Study: HP.com Support Challenges: Meeting requirements? Integration of new design with other sites on HP.com Will new design support the functionality? Solutions: Relationships across HP.com Ongoing design updates based on customer feedback Iterative development, test Value: Kept design aligned with both sets of customer needs and expectations Integration with HP.com Development

24. Case Study: HP.com Support Challenges: Does this site meet the customers’ real world needs? Constant or improved customer satisfaction, usage? Solutions: Large customer survey Remote web-based usability testing, large number of users Usability testing in lab Value: Customer-focused approach to evaluating support site Validates if the content is useful, meets customer needs Product Release

25. HP.com summary Fully integrated site released in August, 2003 Initial usability data show this performs as well if not better than the previous sites across user types The designers formerly from HP and Compaq now work together as one group Continue to update and improve the support content to our customers http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Home.jsp

26. Summary Customer-centered focus can unify diverse stakeholders and be the basis for common process definition Customer-centered design activities can and should be incorporated into every phase of product design and development CCDS activities are tailored to the needs of each project CCDS activities: Decrease development time and cost by “getting it right the first time” Increase customer satisfaction by meeting their needs and expectations

27. Resources www.hfes.org - Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Mission: to promote the discovery and exchange of knowledge concerning the characteristics of human beings that are applicable to the design of systems and devices of all kinds. www.upassoc.org - Usability Professionals Association Supports those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience. www.acm.org/sigs/sigchi - ACM Special Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction Brings together people working on the design, evaluation, implementation, study of interactive computing systems for human use. www.baddesigns.com - Examples of things that are hard to use because they do not follow human factors principles

28. HP logo

29. Plagger is for you. see Bloglines2gmail

30. Who here has ever written a tool using XML::RSS?

31. Welcome aboard. There's a chance that you can transform your script into a Plagger plugin. And I can give you a svn commit bit!

32. Why Pluggable? Just for a feed aggregation?

33. 2002 Apr. baseball2rss http://search.cpan.org/dist/WWW-Baseball-NPB/

34. 2003 Oct. rss2javascript http://blog.bulknews.net/cookbook/blosxom/rss/rss2js.html

35. 2004 Sep. bloglines2ipod http://bulknews.net/lib/utils/bloglines2ipod/

36. 2004 Oct. rss2audiobook http://bulknews.net/lib/utils/rss2audiobook/

37. 2005 Aug. bloglines2gmail http://svn.bulknews.net/repos/public/bloglines2email/trunk/

38. Looks like It's not only me doing these things.

39. rss2opml http://aruntx.com/software/rss2opml/

40. rss2pdf http://rss2pdf.com/

41. rss2atom brian.wanamaker.com/mybicycle/2004/02/rss2atom.html

42. atom2rss http://www.2rss.com/software.php?page=atom2rss

43. rss2ical http://bura-bura.com/blog/archives/2004/06/22/rss2ical/

44. Bloglines2opml http://mycvs.org/wp/wp-content/wp-transform.php

45. rss2gmail http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~karu/gmailrss/

46. rss2imap http://rss2imap.sourceforge.jp/

47. ebay2rss http://www.2rss.com/software.php?page=ebay2rss

48. svn2rss http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/Svn2rss

49. <anything>2<anything>

50. Being sick of writing the same code again and again

51. Why not creating A pluggable platform Instead?

52. With reusable Parsers / Emitters / Filters?

53. That's what Plagger is.

54. IRC, Eject, Growl MSAgent, SSTP … Filter Publish StripRSSAd TruePermalink EntryFullText Pipe Thumbnail FindEnclosures FetchEnclosure SpamAssassin RSSLiberalDateTime URLBL ResolveRelativeLink … Gmail Delicious PDF MT Feed Planet Speech … Notify Bloglines Config OPML, XOXO File, DBI, FOAF … Mixi, Yahoo360JP POP3, iCal iTunes, Amazon YouTube … Subscription CustomFeed

55. IRC, Eject, Growl MSAgent, SSTP … Filter Publish StripRSSAd TruePermalink EntryFullText Pipe Thumbnail FindEnclosures FetchEnclosure SpamAssassin RSSLiberalDateTime URLBL ResolveRelativeLink … Gmail Delicious PDF MT Feed Planet Speech … Notify Bloglines Config OPML, XOXO File, DBI, FOAF … Mixi, Yahoo360JP POP3, iCal iTunes, Amazon YouTube … Subscription CustomFeed

56. IRC, Eject, Growl MSAgent, SSTP … Filter Publish StripRSSAd TruePermalink EntryFullText Pipe Thumbnail FindEnclosures FetchEnclosure SpamAssassin RSSLiberalDateTime URLBL ResolveRelativeLink … Gmail Delicious PDF MT Feed Planet Speech … Notify Bloglines Config OPML, XOXO File, DBI, FOAF … Mixi, Yahoo360JP POP3, iCal iTunes, Amazon YouTube … Subscription CustomFeed

57. IRC, Eject, Growl MSAgent, SSTP … Filter Publish StripRSSAd TruePermalink EntryFullText Pipe Thumbnail FindEnclosures FetchEnclosure SpamAssassin RSSLiberalDateTime URLBL ResolveRelativeLink … Gmail Delicious PDF MT Feed Planet Speech … Notify Bloglines Config OPML , XOXO File, DBI, FOAF … Mixi, Yahoo360JP POP3, iCal iTunes, Amazon YouTube … Subscription CustomFeed

58. Just like Lego™ Block

59. Create an app With combo of Plugins!

60. Example App #1 Bloglines to Gmail

61. bloglines2gmail.yaml plugins: - module: Subscription::Bloglines config: username: you@example.com password: foobar mark_read: 1 - module: Publish::Gmail config: mailto: [email_address] mailfrom: miyagawa@example.com mailroute: via: smtp host: smtp.example.com

62. Run it on crontab % ./plagger –c bloglines2gmail.yaml

63. RSS in Gmail

64. HTML + Images

65. Feed Image (Logo / Buddy Icon)

66. Search

67. Auto grouping (“Conversations”)

68. Diff

69. Tips: Filter

70. Tips: is:unread

71. Example App #2 RSS to ircbot

72. RSS bot in action #plagger on freenode

73. Config for RSS bot (1/3) plugins: - module: Subscription::Config config: feed: # Trac's feed for changesets - http://plagger.org/…/rss

74. Config for RSS bot (2/3) # I don't like to be notified of same items # more than once! - module: Filter::Rule rule: module: Fresh mtime: path: /tmp/rssbot.time autoupdate: 1

75. Config for RSS bot (3/3) - module: Notify::IRC config: daemon_port: 9999 nickname: plaggerbot server_host: chat.freenode.net server_channels: - #plagger-ja - #plagger

76. See more in examples/irc.yaml

77. Example App #3 Planet

78. http://planet.yapcchicago.org/

79. planet-yapcna.yaml (1/4) plugins: - module: Subscription::Config config: feed: - http://yapcchicago.org/feed/ - http://use.perl.org/search.pl?query=YAPC… - http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/yapcna2006 - http://feeds.technorati.com/feed/posts/… - http://bloglines.com/search?q=YAPC+NA&… # etc, etc …

80. planet-yapcna.yaml (2/4) # Normalize feed title and permalinks - module: Filter::FeedBurnerPermalink - module: Filter::TruePermalink - module: Filter::StripTagsFromTitle

81. planet-yapcna.yaml (3/4) # Create a smartfeed for all the entries merged - module: SmartFeed::All rule_op: AND rule: - module: Fresh duration: 10080 # seven days - module: URLBL dnsbl: rbl.bulkfeeds.jp config: title: Planet YAPC::NA

82. planet-yapcna.yaml (4/4) # Generate nice XHTML out of the SmartFeed - module: Publish::Planet rule: expression: $args->{feed}->id eq 'smartfeed:all' config: dir: /path/to/htdocs skin: sixapart-std template: members_list: 1 style_url: http://example.com/style.css

83. (I admit this Planet config is so clumsy and I'll work on that to make it suck less.)

84. Example App #4 YouTube downloader

85. youtube.yaml plugins: - module: Subscription::Config config: feed: - http://www.youtube.com/rss/tag/yapc.rss # discover real .flv URLs on YouTube.com - module: Filter::FindEnclosures # fetch them to local directory - module: Filter::FertchEnclosure config: dir: path/to/save

86. Coming soon … Filter::ffmpeg, Sync::PSP, Sync::iPodVideo

87. Plagger Core features

88. RSS/Atom Auto-Discovery

89. Support various Feed formats RSS 0.91 to Atom 1.0

90. Support parsing Broken XML feeds (XML::Liberal)

91. Podcast / Videocast Support (RSS 2.0 & Atom 1.0)

92. Photocast Media RSS iTunes RSS*

93. Sane I18N impl. Unicode & Timezone

94. Access to browser's Cookies IE, Safari, Firefox and w3m Thanks to brian d foy

95. Quick tour On available plugins

96. Plugin phases (types) Subscription Aggregator CustomFeed Filter Publish Notify Search

97. Subscription load subscriptions (list the feeds/URLs to aggregate)

98. Subscription::Config - module: Subscription::Config config: feed: - http://www.yapcchicago.org/feed/ - http://tokyo.yapcasia.org/blog/

99. Subscription::OPML - module: Subscription::OPML config: url: http://www.example.com/subs.opml # subs.opml <opml> <outline xmlUrl=&quot;http://www.yapcchicago.org/feed/&quot; /> <outline htmlUrl=&quot;http://tokyo.yapcasia.org/blog/&quot; /> </opml>

100. Subscription::File - module: Subscription::File config: url: file:///path/to/subscription.txt % cat subscription.txt http://www.yapcchicago.org/feed/ http://tokyo.yapcasia.org/blog/ %

101. Subscription::XOXO - module: Subscription::XOXO config: url: http://www.example.com/subscription.html # subscription.html <ul class=&quot;xoxo&quot;> <li><a href=&quot;http://www.yapcchicago.org/feed/&quot;>YAPC::NA</a></li> <li><a href=&quot;http://tokyo.yapcasia.org/blog/&quot;>YAPC::NA</a></li> </ul>

102. Subscription::Bookmarks Read bookmarks file of IE, Firefox and Safari

103. Aggregator Aggregate and parse the feeds listed in subscription(s)

104. Aggregator::Simple The &quot;dumb&quot; aggregator Using LWP and XML::Feed Might be okay < 20 feeds

105. Aggregator::Xango The &quot;fast&quot; aggregator using Xango.pm the POE based scalable web crawler For > 100 feeds

106. CustomFeed Feed formats other than RSS/Atom Scrapers

107. CustomFeed::POP3 Each email is a feed. Attachments are enclosures.

108. CustomFeed::MySpace* Your friends journal as feed (* indicates it's not developed yet)

109. CustomFeed::FlickrSearch Search results as feed Each photo found is an entry (with enclosures).

110. Filter Normalize / Repair feed metadata Upgrade feed content Filter feed content using text filters Invoke some action on entries

111. Filter::StripRSSAd Supports: Google AdSense, FeedBurner, Pheedo

112. Filter::EntryFullText Upgrade content-less feed to fulltext feed by fetching individual HTML and extracting the content body

113. Filter::TruePermalink Resolves nasty redirection URL to the &quot;true&quot; permalink (e.g. http://…/go.php?url=….)

114. Filter::FindEnclosures Find enclosures from content body <a href=&quot;http://…./foo.mp3&quot;>episode #1</a>

115. Filter::RSSLiberalDateTime Deal with broken rss datetime format <pubDate>2006/06/27 01:45:22 +0900</pubDate>

116. Publish Publish aggregated entry to online services Convert feeds to other formats

117. Publish::Feed Republish feed in RSS/Atom Good to use with scrapers

118. Publish::Delicious Auto-post entries to your del.icio.us using its REST API

119. Publish::iCal* Publish iCal feeds out of RSS/Atom

120. Publish::MTWidget

121. Publish::Excel If your boss is unhappy your reading blogs on browsers.

122. Search Index aggregated entries on search engines

123. Search::Spotlight

124. Search::Estraier Uses HyperEstraier XMLRPC node API

125. Notify Notify feed updates in various ways

126. Notify::Campfire

127. Notify::Growl

128. Notify::MSAgent

129. Notify::Eject Supports: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OSX!

130. So far, Plagger rocks 

131. Actually, Plagger sucks 

132. No good Documentation (Not a big deal if you can read Perl code)

133. Horrible lots of CPAN deps. % grep requires Makefile.PL | wc –l 25 % grep recommends Makefile.PL | wc –l 70

134. cpan Plagger Doesn't work (partially)

135. 144 open tickets On Trac http://plagger.org/trac/query (Not a bad sign. I use it as a Wishlist)

136. The way it de-dupes entries is clumsy

137. No database Backend (yet) Planned to be in core of 0.8

138. Plugin invocations Can be rule-based but undocumented

139. Different Plugin functionalities On the same namespaces (CustomFeed, Filter, Publish)

140. Publish::Gmail was badly named

141. I want you To fix & improve it.

142. Plagger dev. Status

143. Version 0.7.3

144. Coming Soon …

145. iTunes RSS support

146. Enclosure processors ffmpeg, Sync::PSP, Sync::iPodVideo

147. Rich Media metadata ID3 tag in enclosures Links to imdb.com / amazon.com hReview microformats

148. Database Storage & Server API branches/plagger-server

149. Calendar Support iCal parser & emitter hCalendar microformats .ics attached in emails Sync::SyncML

150. How's the dev going on?

151. 31 authors 128 plugins (most of them are from Japan)

152. Buzz in Japan

153. I am Happy With &quot;the Buzz&quot;

154. I am !Happy With &quot;In Japan&quot;

155. Help spreading the words

156. Doc Contribution Is highly welcome

157. http://plagger.org/ Planet, Mailing List, IRC Bug Tracking, SVN repository

158. #plagger on freenode

159. Join Us!

160. Thank you Questions?

161. browsing alone

162. Part I: Why NOW?

163. The web has become a social sphere

164. Who is online Broadband penetration is at more than 50% From Pew Internet Research, for US only

165. From Pew Internet Research, for US only

166. Just for fun! 34% men , 26% women 37% of 18-29 yrs old , and 20% of 65 and over go online, on any given day, just for fun… From Pew Internet Research, for US only

167. The web has become a social sphere Massively multiplayer online games

168. Hintz Alumni Center Evening Mixers: • 400 Indoors • 400 Patio Seating

169. Beaver Stadium Tuesday Night Banquet - Tailgate Party and Old Fashioned Ice Cream Party and Sock-Hop Nittany Club Sports Museum

170. Posters, Exhibits & Socials Walk Time to Venue Capacities Eisenhower Hetzel Union Building (HUB) 5 minutes Alumni Hall Posters up to 550 HUB Eateries Seating for 900 White Gym Exhibits 7 minutes Nittany Lion Inn 15 minutes Ballroom Banquets up to 500 3 Banquet Rooms Banquets up to 160 4 Meeting Rooms Banquets up to 100

171. Penn State has a full-service catering company on campus for breaks and meals. We also have our own bakery which supplies Java Co. Catering

172. Hotels Nittany Lion Inn Council Meetings Banquets Banquet & Social Venues

173. Nittany Lion Inn The Nittany Lion Inn is a gracious, colonial style hotel right on-campus. A 15 minute walk to ASV sessions A National Trust historic hotel

174. A National Trust historic hotel • For Banquets & Council Meetings • 220 Sleeping Rooms Nittany Lion Inn

176. Courtyard Inn Nittany Lion Inn Days Inn Hampton Inn Hilton Garden Inn Ramada Inn Atherton Penn Stater 2 mi from campus >

177. Conference Center • 2 miles From Campus • 300 Luxury Rooms

178. Exhibits

179. Penn State Campus Main Presentation Sites: < Eisenhower Auditorium (2,500)

180. Downtown State College flanks the south side of campus, a five-minute walk from campus housing, and a 12 minute walk from Eisenhower Auditorium.

181. MEALS ON-CAMPUS Breakfast $ 5.75 Lunch $ 8.25 Dinner $10.00 Banquet $45.00 HOUSING ON-CAMPUS * Single Room in Eastview Terrace $57.00/night Double Room Nittany Suites $40.00/night * Includes Breakfast

182. Budget

186. WOW is millions of people with diverse backgrounds collaborating, socializing, and learning while having fun. It represents the future of real-time collaborative teams in an always-on, diversity-intensive, real-time environment. WOW is a glimpse into our future. Joi Ito in Wired Magazine

187. 240,000 users

188. Wells Fargo StageCoach Island

189. American Apparel

190. Four draws of such games the ability to socialize an achievement system that gives players an incentive to improve complex and satisfying strategy that makes combat fun underlying narrative that players want to learn more about Many games also update continuously, adding features and addressing user requests

191. Alone together Social interaction in online gaming (Ducheneaut et al. 2006) Surrounded by others. Feel their presence, not interacting all the time Analogy: Reading book in a cafe Spectacle: Performing for an audience Analogy: Playing pinball with others watching Social facilitation (Zajonc, 1960) Improved performance in presence of others (even if presence is passive) Observed even in cockroaches!

192. The web has become a social sphere Massively multiplayer online games Rich interfaces enable richer interactions

193. Part II

194. Part II: What is social sharing?

196. Hi I found you while I was searching my network at LinkedIn. Let's connect directly, so we can help each other with referrals. If we connect, both of our networks will grow. To add me as your connection, just follow the link below.

197. First generation Social Networks (Friendster, LinkedIn…) 1) I am linked to -> -> to you ---> --->You are linked to her -> ---> so on… How it works Individuals connected to each other Relationships can be marked, hubs identified Concept of six degrees of separation “ Are you my friend” type of awkwardness

198. Object mediated social networks “… call for the rethinking of sociality along lines that include objects in the concept of social relations.” Katrin-Knorr Cetina

199. Coffee Dance performance Tomatoes

200. Second generation social networks Put objects at the center Social sharing Tagging Viral sharing Social News Creation

201. Social sharing of our stuff (social networks with objects in between) e.g., Flickr, Yahoo answers 1) I share my pics -> -> with you ---> -->You share your pics -> ---> with him How it works People share objects and watch others Social connections are through objects Formation of social streams of information with emergence of popular, interesting items

202. Viral sharing (passing on interesting stuff) e.g., YouTube videos 1) I send video I like -> -> to you. You pass on --> --> to her, who sends on to her, who passes on… How it works Individual to individual to individual Popularity based navigation helps track “viral” items

203. Tag-based social sharing (linked by concepts…) e.g., Flickr, del.icio.us 1) I tag my bookmarks -> you see my tags -->You share your tags -> How it works Saving & tagging your stuff (creating bookmarks). Tags mediate social connections Formation of social/conceptual information streams. Emergence of popular, interesting items politics lebanon Global voices politics technology Global voices web JAVA CNN networks blogs science science science brain

204. Social news creation (rating news stories) e.g., digg, Newsvine 1) I find interesting story -> you rate story -->Others rate stories How it works Finding and rating stories Popular stories rise to top 5 4

205. Objects invite us to Connect Play React Reach out

206. Part III: So you want to design for social sharing?

207. Forget the ipod!

208. Web 2.0 and Virtual Worlds Roo Reynolds Metaverse Evangelist [email_address]

209. Your innocent laughter was so pure

210. To my pain it was the cure

211. My heart fills with pain so much

212. To see all the lives of people that you have touched..

213. memories of you are so sweet …

214. But sometimes they make me weep …

215. A story of an African Safari An adventure experienced by three little boys. PART ONE

216. It was November 2006…. The three boys were together in the back of the car. It was hot and sticky. They had been driving a long time. They were getting kind of cranky but Taz kept reminding the other two that they were about to see LOTS OF AFRICAN ANIMALS. He knew, because Ouma had told him so.

217. Oupa suggested a contest: the first one to see an animal would be the winner. He explained that it was an old family tradition. And then, Leon saw what looked like a stick on the side of the road….

218. “ SNAKE!!!” Leon shouted. “ Nonsense,” said Daniel. That’s just a silly old stick.” “ No,” said Taz, look, it’s moving…it IS a snake!”

219. Looking out different windows When Papa looked out the window on his side of the car, he could see this. When Mama looked out the window on HER side of the car, she could see this. There was a snake AND a stick.

220. Which snake do you think it is? Me! It is me! I’m a puff adder. The book says I’m ‘large, thick bodied, sluggish, broad head is covered in small scales. Tail very short. Body scales rough. Body yellowish to light brown with numerous dark chevrons… active at dusk, Up to 30 young born in late summer. May give deep warning hiss. Bites readily. Venom causes swelling and pain, occasionally death. Found throughout Africa.’

221. The snake in the picture was the first puffadder that Ouma had ever seen. She had to ask her brother, Guillaume, what kind of snake it was. Guillaume is a hiker and a mountaineer so he knows more about snakes than she does. He immediately knew the answer.

222. Does Leon win? Is a snake an animal? No! I’m a banana, not a snake. (How can I get them to come closer so I can SHOW THEM my FANGS?) A snake is a reptile. Reptiles are members of the animal kingdom. So yes, Leon won – the snake IS an animal.

223. The way to avoid puff adders is to look in the path in front of you when you walk and to make a small amount of noise – like tapping a stick against the rocks in the path. The puff adder then gets a fright and gets out of your way. (Shouting is a BAD IDEA because then it frightens all the other animals away too.)

224. But what about the stick on the other side of the car? No, a stick is not an animal. A stick comes from a tree, so it is part of a plant. HOWEVER, a stick can be an insect. During their exploration of the camp the boys saw several stick insects. BUT THIS STICK? It is a very special thing. It is a message – a signal. There’s one animal in the African bush that likes breaking such leafy sticks off trees to carry around until they get bored, then they drop them. The boys soon found out what that animal is….

225. Compare two of the little boys to the elephant in SIZE Why is Taz holding his nose???

226. … .because he’s never ever smelled anything like an elephant before Elephant poo!

227. Elephants are MUCH bigger in real life than the ones one sees on TV. Elephants in Kruger Park are very used to cars and buses and sometimes will allow us to get quite close to them – THEN you can see exactly how big they are.

228. You can tell how recently an elephant passed by, based on the elephant dung. Can you guess how? Or Maybe you already know? If you don’t and would like to, ask your father.

229. They carried on driving….. Although it was very hot, Uncle Eric (Dad, to you, Daniel!) insisted that they kept the windows open and the air conditioner off. “ Only with the windows open will you hear the birds and the insects and smell the bushveld smells,” he said.

230. I’m sorry … for the bad times we had to share

231. I’m thankful … for the sad times you’ve helped me bare.

232. that have known you. i am proud to be one amongst tons of others

233. So many people you have helped with just a smile

234. you were the type that was worth waiting for a while … so many memories filled with laughter

235. if only they keep going forever after

236. years went by it seems so long ago but at the same time i can’t let you go i can’t seem to get over the fact that you’re gone i keep expecting you to show up for more laughs and fun

237. you were such a young person and you opened my eyes Always a legend you will be in my eyes

238. Web 2.0

239. Web 2.0 examples (then and now) Personal websites -> blogs Britannica Online -> Wikipedia DoubleClick -> Google AdSense Domain name speculation -> search engine optimisation Screen scraping -> web services Content management systems -> wikis Directories (taxonomy) -> tagging (&quot;folksonomy&quot;)

240. Web 2.0 components / characteristics The Web as “ The Platform” Tools: RSS, AJAX, PHP, Ruby Services, not packaged software Architecture of participation Small pieces loosely joined, or “re-mixed” Harnessing collective intelligence Software that gets better as more people use it Standards: REST, XHTML Techniques: Mash-up, wiki, tagging, blogging Rich user experience Light-weight programming models

241. Key themes to remember Social networking User-generated content

242. Web 2.0 attitude “ Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology. It’s about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services . By open I mean technically open with appropriate APIs but also, more importantly, socially open , with rights granted to use the content in new and exciting contexts.” Ian Davis http://iandavis.com/blog/2005/07/talis-web-20-and-all-that

243. Web 2.0 is understood – so what’s next?

244. Games?! A few numbers… 69% of American heads of households play computer or video games In 2005, 25% of gamers were over the age of 50 The average game player age is 33 44% of most frequent game players say they play games online In 2005, video and computer games sales came in at $7billion Slightly down on 2004 – due to new consoles Source: Entertainment Software Association., “Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry, 2006”

245. Virtual Worlds - background Online Games e.g. Quake, Half-Life, … MMORPGs (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games) e.g. Everquest, Project Entropia, World of Warcraft, … Persistent online world Virtual Worlds - Massively multiplayer (but not role-playing games) e.g. There.com, Second Life, Big World, … The users generate the content Not really a game; no objectives – ‘just’ a platform A place for meeting, building, selling, collaborating and exploring.

246. Virtual Worlds Second Life ( http://secondlife.com ) 3,600,000+ user accounts and growing fast 1,100,000+ logged on in past 2 months. Usually 15,000+ concurrently online Active economy Millions of US$ changes hands between players every month. Media coverage BBC, Wired, Economist, Business Week, Observer, Sunday Times, Guardian, Channel 4, CBS, USA Today, The Register, Forbes, … everyone

247. Some principles…

248. 1: Make system personally useful For end-user system should have strong personal use Memorable Personal Snippets (e.g., Del.icio.us & Flickr) Self-expression (e.g., Newsvine) Social status: Digg Don’t count on altruism System should thrive on people’s selfishness

249. Bite-sized self-expression Creative self-expression Artistic expression (Flickr, YouTube) Humor (YouTube) Individual piece should be small Can create sets & lists Do Mashups Simple, guessable URLs for everything Leave room for games & social play Appreciation Stalking (some!) Gossip

250. 2: Identify symbiotic relationship between personal & social Personal snippets > Social stream Pictures > Organized by Events Music > Organized by Playlists

251. 3: Create porous boundary between public & private Earlier systems Personal (Personal Desktop Software, e.g., Picasa, EndNote) OR Social websites (Shutterfly) Rethink public & private People share for the right returns Set defaults to public, allow easy change to private Give user control Over individual pieces & sets Delete items from history Reset /remove profile Privacy settings on Flickr

252. 4. Allow for levels of participation Everyone does not need to create! Implicit creation (creating by consuming) Remixing—adding value to others’ content Source: Bradley Horowitz’s weblog, Elatable, Feb. 17, 2006, “Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers”

253. Why do people digg? “ commenting, digging, burying comments, typing descriptions, reading hundreds of articles and… … for a lot of nerds, using digg is just a casual free-time activity. Entertaining. Fun. Engaging.”

254. how to encourage participation Insights from Social Psychology Highlight unique contribution Allow for smaller local groups Highlight benefit to self from Highlight benefit to group Source: Using social psychology to motivate contributions to online communities, Ling et al. 2005

255. 5. Let people feel the presence of others What paths are well worn User profiles / photos Real-time updating Like a conversation Sense that others are out there What people are digging right now!

256. 6. And yet, moments of Independence… Choreography: when alone, when part of group Prevent mobs Don’t make it too easy to mimic others Incentives for originality & uniqueness

257. Allow for alternative viewpoints & perspectives Social sharing can lead to tyranny of dominant view People of a group agree Viewpoint rises to top (popularity lists, tag clouds)

258. Create conditions for wise crowds Cognitive Diversity Independence Decentralization Easy Aggregation

259. Wise Crowds: Cognitive Diversity Need many perspectives for good answers Groups become homogenous Members bring lesser new information in Diversity reduces groupthink Groupthink works by shielding members from outside opinions Diversity reduces conformity Chance that you will change opinion to match group

260. Wise Crowds: Independence Keeps people’s mistakes from getting correlated (uncorrelated mistakes averaged out) Encourages people to bring in new viewpoints (diversity) Concept of Social Proof Milgram experiment People assume that groups know what they are doing Assuming crowd is wise, leads to herd like behavior Can sometimes lead to good decisions Information Cascades Sequence of uninformed choices, building upon each other

261. Wise Crowds: Decentralization “ A crowd of decentralized people working to solve a problem on their own without any central effort to guide them, come up with better solutions, rather than a top-down driven solution.” Suroweicki

262. Wise Crowds: Easy Aggregation A decentralized system can pick right solution With easy way for information to be aggregated across system Example: votes on Digg

263. 7. Enable Serendipity Don’t make navigation all about popularity Access to some popular stuff (keep this fast moving) Make the “long tail” accessible Popularity as a jump off point to other ways of exploring Provide personalization Recommendations using collaborative filtering Similar tags, content, others Ad-hoc groups?

264. 8. Most of all, allow for play

265. Things to try at home! Create an account on myspace.com Read Emergence, Wisdom of Crowds Play a Multiplayer Online Game (WOW, Second Life) Play with an API (try GoogleMaps API) Try a mobile social application (DodgeBall) Ask your friends what they find “fun” on the web

266. Questions? www.rashmisinha.com www.uzanto.com