Television meets Facebook: Social Networks through Consumer Electronics Mariana Baca, Henry Holtzman MIT Media Laboratory
[email protected],
[email protected] Abstract The project explores how the merging of ubiquitous consumer electronics and the sociable web improve the user experience of these devices, increase the functionality of both, and help distribute content in a more sociable way. The project will consist of one well fleshed out principal application: a digital video recorder (manufactured by Motorola, running OCAP) connected to the Facebook social network. By connecting these two technologies, the user can now automatically watch the shows her friends like and are willing to report to the social network; in return, the user transmits her viewing data back to the social network. 2. Motivation of Project There are two domains that expand every day with much untapped potential: network-enabled consumer electronics and social networking applications on the web. The problem this project solves is three-fold: 1) how can pervasive consumer electronics work together in a simple way, 2) how can the data within a social networking application diffuse in useful ways into its participants’ real lives, and 3) how can these systems accomplish these tasks seamlessly without adding time or usability complexity to the user experience? The project endeavours to show through an
exemplary embodiment how tangible technologies can be connected to virtual communities; it sets a direction for future consumer electronics to connect with the web through open APIs so that the data contained within the Internet can be mined intelligently for the ease of the user. The device in question will be an IP-enabled digital video recorder in the form of an advanced cable television set-top box, but the theoretical idea could be implemented on cell phones, music players, or other networked electronics. The project will connect the device to one particular set of data (TV and movie preferences) in the social networking application Facebook, chosen because of its popularity and open API. In the future, similar applications could use other types of data mined from other social networks or blogs. We expect that the integration of consumer electronics and social networking will provide benefit to content producers and distributors through the automation of word-of-mouth recommendation. Information spreads virally through the World Wide Web in general, and through social networks in particular. However, without automation there are limitations on how quickly a user will absorb the data and how motivated the user will be in acquiring the content when it is not just a click away, but needs to be received manually through another medium.
Figure 3.1: A description of the structure of the proposed implementation
3. Description of Project The project creates a system that links a cable television set-top box (DVR) with the social networking site Facebook. The user can then watch on his TV the media his friends enjoy, as well as his own explicitly requested recordings. With a system of ratings, the user can use her DVR’s enhanced interface to post back on the social network what shows he liked. Facebook is a social networking site launched in 2004, as of this writing claims 67 million active users, and is still growing. Facebook users form networks by indicating to the system which other users are their friends. In 2007 Facebook released an open API that allows third parties to develop applications that dock into the Facebook user interface. Once granted access to a user’s personal data, a Facebook application can aggregate this data across multiple users (Facebook Factbook, 2008). OCAP is a Java-based middleware layer for cable television set-top boxes, defined by CableLabs (Schwartz, 2002). Motorola, Inc. makes set-top boxes that support OCAP, contain DVR, or harddisk recording capabilities, and have an Ethernet port with an IP stack. Our project leverages the Facebook platform and Motorola provided OCAP set-top boxes so that we may concentrate on the unique aspect of our project: integrating the two. The project components consist of three main parts: a UI (see Figure 3.1) on the cable box, an API for communicating between the cable box and a web interface, and a Facebook application. The UI on the cable box allows the user to view the ratings of others, watch, and rate the TV shows and movies that were automatically recorded for them. The second component is a communication protocol between the Facebook application and the hardware device, through which our application is able to specify shows to be automatically recorded and also retrieve pertinent user data from the device. The last component is a Facebook application front end. It uses the Facebook API to mine data from the user’s friends network to find out the most viewed movies and shows and also posts information about what the user has been watching and has liked while using the device. It has a web-based UI for any overrides and privacy settings a user wishes to enter: for example, a user might wish to not record movies with a certain rating by default. The firstpass preference algorithm is based on a basic histogram of all the friend’s preferences—that, combined with user vetoes provides the first listings of shows. Subsequent likes and dislikes recorded on
the DVR and the likes adjust the histogram and dislikes further veto shows automatically. A series of trials will be carried out, to measure the effectiveness of the social networking application, the TV user interface, and the system as a whole. A series of user surveys will measure the effectiveness of the front end. A longer study will measure the effectiveness of the system as a whole by placing web-enabled DVRs connected to the system in volunteers’ homes for 1-2 weeks. The system is meant to enhance the social experience of watching television by sharing more data on Facebook, by automating the peer recommendation process, and by making exhaust data on Facebook relevant to the user’s daily experience. The user’s profile box in Facebook is the main vehicle for sharing the user’s upcoming viewing schedule. Additionally, since the information in their profile affects their viewing habits, users are likely going to be more conscious who they add to their friends network and what data they provide through their profiles. The expectation for this project is that the system will help users find appealing new content faster than they would otherwise, will help users share content and experiences more easily than simply through the unassisted social networking application, and will help content producers and distributors track content distribution in a social network directly into consumer electronics. 4. Progress and Timeline Short Evaluations and Long Term user studies are currently being conducted to evaluate the project from a quantitative as well as qualitative standpoint. Twenty-two users used the Facebook application without the attached DVR box to evaluate the ease of use of the user interface and the usefulness of the product itself. All respondents expressed a favourable opinion of the interface, and wished more DVR functionality could be included in the Facebook application itself. Five 1-2 week user studies will be undertaken in users’ homes in May. References Facebook Factbook (2008). Retrieved March 1, 2008, from, http://www.facebook.com/press/ info.php?factsheet. Schwartz, M. (2002).CableLabs Publishes OCAP Middleware Specifications. Retrived March 1, 2008, from, http://www.cablelabs.com/news/pr/ 2002/ 2002_01_03.html.
