Introduction to Social Reading Technologies

Frédéric Kaplan

frederic.kaplan@ep!.chtwitter: @frederickaplan

New social technologies(for sharing, for collaborating, for discovering)

+ New reading interfaces(computer, smartphone, tablet, augm. paper)

= Social reading technologies

3important things to understand aboutsocial reading technologies

Reading and writing are not solitary activities. There are many existing social reading practices. There will be more.

-1-Social reading practicesare not new.

Social reading technologiescan be used with both paper and digital reading interfaces.

Paper in not dead. Digital reading interfaces are nice. This debate is a wrong one. We can have the best of both worlds.

-2-

Social reading technologies may o"er an alternative to machine-learning based analytics

-3-

Data mining technologies will certainly create interesting representations of our reading practices, but social reading technologies practices may o"er more relevant services.

-1-Social reading practicesare not new.

The classical imagery:

Reading asan asocial practice.

This classical imagery is supported by the phenomenology ofthe reading experience

Diving into a book

Writer Reader

Reading as an intimate and private experience

But reading is also a social practice.

Can you name existing social reading practices?

Reading together synchronously

Institutionally driven social reading : Churchs, Schools, ...

Information drivensocial reading : newspapers, blogs ...

Reading together asynchronously

Book clubs, circles, cafés, libraries.

Books as social media

Rea

ders

Documents

Readers trajectoriesin the documents space.

Documents trajectoriesin the readers space.

New

social reading services

New “book-club” services

launching conversations about books, discovering new books based on readers with similar taste

focus on readers space

New “folksonomies” to classify books

Emergent tagging conventions and vocabularies to talk about reading experiences

focus on document space

New “geolocalization”services

“check-in” in a book. Becoming a “mayor” of a book. See who checked-in before, etc.

focus on trajectories

Social reading technologiescan be used with both paper and digital reading interfaces.

-2-

A not so interesting debate

You don’t have to choose.

Books as resources

URLQR Code

URLQR Code

Bookmarkscommentsimagesvideossound...

Book page

BookmarksCommentsImagesVideosSound...

underlineshare

Exercise

De#ne a versatile format for describing “bookmarks”

http://www.openbookmarks.orgLaunched by James Bridle in 2010

How should we represent a “bookmark” at a “position” in a “book” ?

“bookmark”- pointer : a position marker (like a dog-ear)- highlight : a position marker + snippet of text for the book- note : a position marker + additional content added by the reader

“book”How can we identify a book ?- Book title + Book author- Book edition ISBN- Universal Work Number : OpenLibrary or LibraryThing ID- Image ? Bookcover, Bookpage ?

“position”- page + line + character (dep. of an edition)- % of text- A long-enough text string (long to search)

A combination of these ?

“position”

What about hierarchical documents (text book, magazine, dictionaries)?What about “augmented” books ?

“position”

Procedural reference systems(CHAP1:LINE-45)> #C:1:L:45(PAGE6:COMMENT4)> #P:6:CO:4(PAGE6:COMMENT4:VIDEO2)> #P:6:CO:4:V:2(PAGE6:COMMENT4: VIDEO2:TIME:45)> #P:6:CO:4:V:2:T:45(PAGE6:COMMENT4:VIDEO2:WORD:3)> #P:6:CO:4:V:2:W:3(ISBN:9780141182803:CHAP1:LINE-45)> #I:9780141182803:C:1:L:45(ID: OL86344W:PTEXT:45.75:WORD:“ROBOT”)> #I:OL86344W:PT:45.75:W:ROBOT

<bmxl> <Bookmark> <work> <title>Ulysses</title> <author>James Joyce</author> <isbn>9780141182803</isbn> <id>OL86344W</id> </work> <mark> <position>123</position> <note>Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead</note> </mark> <meta> <timestamp>2010-12-01T15:33Z</timestamp> <latitude>51.52311534332867</latitude> <longitude>-0.08179262280464172</longitude> </meta> </Bookmark> </bmxl>

Bookmark exchange format(e.g. by J.Bridle)

or... Twitter like syntax

#I:9780141182803:C:1:L:45 This makes me think of http://tinyurl.com/yx2b#T:2010-12-01T15:33Z #GPS:51.52311534332867:-0.08179262280464172

Social reading technologies may o"er an alternative to machine-learning based analytics

-3-

Reading Analytics- what you read and have read (sequences of documents)- when and where you read (timestamp, geolocalization)- how you read (time, eye-tracking)

A new gold rush...

Reading analytics are automatically collectedby many ereading services

Self-reportingand book scrobbling services

Vision-based book recognition

- Barcode recognition- Cover recognition- Page recognition- Annotations recognition

Andrea Mazzei’s researchon annotation recognition

A new understanding of what reading is ...

... but an uncertain use in terms of services

Book recommendations

automatic vs.user generated

The limits of user modeling.

Content analysis

Automatic semantic analysisvs.user-driven semantic tagging

Users can invent syntactic solutions for their own needs

# twitter hashtag

Users can invent syntactic solutions for their own needs

#I:9780141182803:W:3425 #PLACE:TOKYO

#I:9780141182803:W:3434 #NAME:NICOLASBOUVIER

The limits of semantic data mining

Social reading technologies1. are based on existing practices2. work with both printed and digital documents3. have potentially a higher potential in terms of services than machine learning approaches

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