Linking People Through Physical Proximity in a Conference

1. Linking People ThroughPhysical Proximity in aConferenceAlvin Chin, Bin Xu, Hao Wang and XiaWangMobile Social Experiences TeamNRC Growth Economies LabModeling Social Media workshop 2012Nokia Research Center

2. Outline Motivation and research problem Contributions Physical proximity and social linking in a conference Find & Connect Network properties Relationship between physical proximity and social linking in Find & Connect Conclusions and future workNokia Research Center2 Company Confidential

3. Motivation How do I know this friend? Why should I add him/her?Nokia Research Center3 Company Confidential

4. People connect with each other becauseof Social selection Homophily and similarities (McPherson et al, 2001; Guy et al, 2010) Social influence Joining an online community (Backstrom et al, 2006) Consumer desires, behaviours and technology adoption (Vannoy et al, 2010)Nokia Research Center4 Company Confidential

5. Proximity Using location and human mobility for friendship (Cho et al, 2011) Encounters to determine who to add as friend (Aka- Aki; Quercia and Capra, 2009) Introduce people and infer ones social network (Eagle and Pentland, 2005) Enhancing social interactions at conferences (Barrat et al, 2010)Nokia Research Center5 Company Confidential

6. Research problem Can physical proximity affect people to make connections and link to each other? Hypothesis 1: more physical interactions will result in an increased probability for a person to add another as a social connection (social selection) Hypothesis 2: establishing these connections will result in an increased number of physical proximities between each other (social influence)Nokia Research Center6 Company Confidential

7. Offline Improves Friend RecommendationXu et al. Using Physical Context in a Mobile Social Networking Application for Improving FriendRecommendations, 1st International Workshop on Sensing, Networking and Computing onSmartphones, In Proc. of CPSCom 2011, 2011 Nokia Research Center 7 Company Confidential

8. Contributions Examine the relationship between physical proximity and online social connections in an indoor environment for a conferenceNokia Research Center8 Company Confidential

9. Similar work Conferator (Atzmueller et al, 2011) Live Social Semantics (Barrat et al, 2010) IntelliBadge (Cox et al, 2003)Nokia Research Center9 Company Confidential

10. Find & Connect Find people, rooms, sessions, papers in a conference Connect people together through social linking using physical proximity and homophilyNokia Research Center10 Company Confidential

11. Recording physical proximityNokia Research Center11 Company Confidential

12. Social linking in a conference Friend Following Exchange contactsNokia Research Center12 Company Confidential

13. Find attendees on a map @ UIC 2010 Chang et al, Enhancing the Experience and Efficiency at a Conference with Mobile Social Networking: Case Study with Find & Connect, In Proc. of HumanCom 2011, 2011Nokia Research Center13 Company Confidential

14. Connect @UIC with others from feeds andmessages Chang et al, Enhancing the Experience and Efficiency at a Conference with Mobile Social Networking: Case Study with Find & Connect, In Proc. of HumanCom 2011, 2011Nokia Research Center14 Company Confidential

15. Find & Connect @ GCJKXu, B. et al, Physical Proximity and Online User Behavior in an Indoor Mobile Social NetworkingApplication", In Proc. of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Cyber, Physical and SocialComputing (CPSCom 2011), Dalian, China, 1-10. Nokia Research Center 15 Company Confidential

16. Network propertiesNokia Research Center16 Company Confidential

17. Proximity vs. social linking networks Proximity encounters form a highly tight and dense network compared with social linking networks Follow social influence theory of 3 degrees of separation (Cacioppo et al, 2009)Nokia Research Center17 Company Confidential

18. Offline encounters influences onlineconnection @ UICNokia Research Center18 Company Confidential

19. Offline encounters influences onlineconnection @ GCJKNokia Research Center19 Company Confidential

20. Average encounter frequency occur inbursts @ UICNokia Research Center20 Company Confidential

21. Average encounter frequency @ GCJKNokia Research Center21 Company Confidential

22. How physical proximity affects social linking More than 2 hours before social linking social selection is weak At most 2 hours before social linking sharp rise in encounters, social selection becoming strong 2 hours after social linking social influence dominates Eventually proximity encounters flattens outNokia Research Center22 Company Confidential

23. Conclusions Hypothesis 1 on social selection not supported Hypothesis 2 on social influence supported Contact and encounter networks follow social influence theory of 3 degrees of separation Cacioppo, J.T., Fowler, J.H., and Christakis, N.A. Alone in the crowd: the structure and spread of loneliness in a large social network. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 6 (2009), 977.Nokia Research Center23 Company Confidential

24. Future work Collect longitudinal data for longer period of time Study transitions from online and offline and vice versa to create user behaviour model Create algorithm to mine encounters to identify groups that indicate activity-based social networks (ephemeral social networks)Nokia Research Center24 Company Confidential

25. Alvin Chin Nokia Research Center, Beijing [email protected] http://research.nokia.com/people/alvin_chin Facebook: Alvin Chin ([email protected]) LinkedIn: [email protected] Twitter: gadgetman4u Sina Weibo: http://weibo.com/2106762242 (gadgetman) Foursquare: Alvin Chin ([email protected]) Google+: [email protected] Research Center25 Company Confidential

Technology

Linking People Through Physical Proximity in a Conference