Location: 301 College Ave., Seminar Room

Speakers Schedule

Presentation Slides

Abstract:
Social media -- online services that encourage content sharing through individual participation -- have encouraged and enabled people to share various types of information in social and public settings. Data available from social media service may therefore provide opportunities to learn about humans, and humanity. For example, many of the social media services allow their users to annotate any piece of content with location (and time) metadata. Taken in aggregate, this content can get a spatio-temporal representation of the world's interests, and even attitudes and intentions. Using Flickr, I will show how this spatio-temporal data can help us explore the world, as well as derive information that is not otherwise attainable, using a visualization of geotagged image content. I will discuss the growing opportunity in new "social awareness systems" to dive even further into our collective cognition, including a study on characterizing the content shared on Twitter to help us understand activities in these systems.

Bio:
Mor Naaman is an assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information. His research interests include social information systems, social media, multimedia and mobile computing. Prior to joining Rutgers, Mor worked as a research scientist at Yahoo! Research Berkeley, where he led a team of research engineers and interns investigating the future of mobile and social media technology. Mor received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. His research in the Stanford Infolab also focused on digital media, and in particular the management of digital photographs, thereby allowing (and requiring!) him to take photos throughout his research career. Mor is a co-chair of ACM Multimedia 2009's Grand Challenge, served as a co-chair of the JCDL 2008 Program Committee, and is a recipient of two JCDL best paper awards. In previous careers, Mor was a professional basketball player as well as a software developer and a college radio DJ. In subsequent careers, Mor hopes to be a professional backpacker and traveler.

For more information, please contact Corinne Russell.

10/21/09 - Corinne