The Intersection of Personalisation and Shared Experience

Neil Clavin & Damian Rafferty

my BBC

• my BBC is a portable, personalised aggregator of customised UK related information and links to relevant content throughout the BBC web site.

• users must register in a central pan-BBC database for their information preferences to be recorded and served to them as appropriate content.

my BBC

sample my BBC web page

my BBC

weather panel (web)

editor (web)

my BBC

• my BBC is currently accessible on a users desktop through a web browser and also through a PDA via AvantGo.

on the web- www.bbc.co.uk/mybbc

on PDA - www.bbc.co.uk/pda

digital text

• BBC Text is a project to bring information and multimedia to the tv screen — whether through broadcast text services or web like ones.

• more people in the UK (22m out of a pop of 60m) get basic info like news, sport and weather through the tv screen than through the web.

• the analogue system called “teletext” that delivers this will be switched off with analogue tv and BBC text will succeed it on all digital platforms.

• richer media experiences, better navigation, personalisation and community aspects are what will make this service even better, more loved and more used than its predecessor.

digital text - personalisation 2 examples

• imagine having to broadcast (ie no return path)the exact same service to everyone in the country and the box that decodes the service can remember nothing. how do you personalise the content?

digital text - personalisation 2 examples

• delivering the same content via an ip based system like the web or digital cable is relatively easy: cookies and look ups

• tapping into the smartcards

“Personalization is giving us the ability to provide everyone with a unique set of media experiences. How do we then maintain a sense of community through shared experience? (And is that even important?)”

digital text - personalisation 2 examples

• imagine having to broadcast (ie no return path)the exact same service to everyone in the country and the box that decodes the service can remember nothing. how do you personalise the content?

• delivering the same content via an ip based system like the web or digital cable is relatively easy: cookies and look ups

• tapping into the smartcards

considering the intersection between personalisation and community we asked ourselves:

• why do people personalise?• why do people engage with or create communities?• where do these areas overlap?• how can the overlap be applied to our current projects?

why do people personalise?

• to make daily life more efficient organisation of objects and information into easily accessible positions.

• the personalisation of ones environment reinforces ones sense of 'who I am'

• to express (an attractive?) identity to others , to others through dress, interests, etc.

why do people engage with or create communities?

• to construct solutions - to personal problems, problems within wider communities, problems within areas of shared interest.

• to confirm that they are not alone in their attitudes/beliefs - confirmation by group endorsement

• turning a particular belief like Islam or Linux into a universally dominant position, or defending an already established hegemony from challengers

• to expand existing personal knowledge, interests, wealth, relationships through appropriate networks

• to increase influence in society at large• information exchange - economies of knowledge• goods/services exchange

where do these areas overlap?

• in order to form a community at least one person must broadcast their goals/viewpoint to engage persons of similar goals/viewpoints. there must also be a mechanism allowing people to join to further these goals/viewpoints.

• personal selection of which communities one wishes to be involved in.

• a person's identity, acts as an icon to which their personal goals are associated in a community.

• a community requires at least two people with similar but not identical experiences to be valuable.

• personalisation increases the meaningfulness and community forming potential of matches when they do occur.

how can this overlap be applied to our projects?

• community set-up announcer: a user may wish to initiate a community with a specific goal. Trawling other user profiles, invitations will be sent out to support the founding of a community with this particular goal

how can this overlap be applied to our projects?

• community recommender:by comparing users’ profiles of interests against exisiting communities we can suggest new communities to join

how can this overlap be applied to our projects?

• tailored community: often, especially in large communities with a broad scope of interest, much information is of lesser interest to a user. A personalisation filter would point to discussions and sub communities of greatest interest to the individual user within a larger community.

how can this overlap be applied to our projects?

• answer agent: a user could submit a question through a text field. personalisation technologies could then trawl all existing communities and suggest communities most likely to provide an answer. possibly the software itself could post the question to the most appropriate community coming back to the user whenever it receives a reply.