Describing the design of PowerMeeting (a Web browser based real time groupware) and comparing it with Google Wave and ThinkTank, using Tim Burners Lee's Web science process as a framework.

1. Real Time Groupware in Web
Browsers: A New Web 2.0
Species is Coming of Age!?
Dr. Weigang Wang
Decision and Cognitive Sciences Research Centre
Strategy Division, MBS
The University of Manchester
Web / Art / Science Camp Unconference (6 November 2010, London)

2. Overview
• A Web science approach
• The problems/issues
• The PowerMeeting idea
• Technical protocols/rules
• Social protocols/rules
• The evidence of success at micro level
• Some promising lights at macro level
• A comparison to Google Wave, …
• Concluding remarks
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3. A process of Web Science (Tim Burners Lee, 2007)
magic
Problems
combines technical
and social aspects
influence
influence
co-evolve
rules
rules
synthesize
Problems are a
function of the very
large scale
behavior rules
wide participation, large impact useful, usable
fractal tangle communities fractal tangle web
magic
3
Annotation in purple added by WW

4. Wiki example (Tim Burners Lee, 2007)
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5. The Problems/Issues
• Lack of real time collaboration support on the Web
– Web based cooperative systems are largely asynchronous
(e.g. Facebook, Blob, Wiki, Web mail).
– For a long time standard Web browsers and standard Web
networking technologies are inadequate for real time
groupware
– Most plug-in (JavaApplet, Java Web Start, Flash) based ones
are not easy to access and not widely adopted
• Two high-level problems/issues
– Not readily accessible (an issue at micro level)
– Not widely adopted (failed at macro level)
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6. Make two magics at the same time !
real time groupware
not readily accessible
?
real time groupware
not widely adopted
?
6

7. The PowerMeeting Idea
• Standard Web browser based real time
groupware using latest Web 2.0 technologies
(AJAX and AJAX push)
– High level technical protocols that make real time
groupware possible and easier to build (for
developers)
– Social protocols that make the system easier to
understand and more comfortable to use (for end
users)
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8. The technical protocols
• Replicated data model
• Cooperative Model-View-Controller and Cooperative
Model-View-Presenter (CoopMVC and CoopMVP)
• Concurrency friendly content model and change
notification
• Efficient optimistic concurrency control (OCC)
• Smooth moving between synchronous and
asynchronous collaboration modes
– Persistent collaborative session and data objects
– Webized session instances (accessible by URLs)
• Supported by Googe Web Toolkit (GWT) and Java
IDE (Eclipse)
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9. The social protocols
• Meeting metaphor for conventions and social protocols
in group meetings (participants, area of joint focus,
pointer/beamer, agenda and their corresponding task-
specific tools, session chair led group process)
• “PowerPoint” metaphor for planning and execute a
meeting process (consisting of agenda items)
• Point-of-Meeting (PoM) in context (for integrating real
time media into existing asynchronous social media)
• Focus on joint work in shared workspace while using
textual or voice chatting for fine grained coordination
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10. Web science process to PowerMeeting
real time groupware
not readily accessible
meeting in web browsers
real time groupware
enable by AJAX
not widely adopted
replication,
transaction,
meeting metaphor persistency,
respect OCC,
PoM in context CoopMVC
session URL
Wide participation?
PowerMeeting
Fractal tangle groups in communities
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Integration into asyn coop sys

11. PowerMeeting
• PowerMeeting supports participants to plan
and perform their group activities (using
various task-specific groupware tools) in a well
coordinated group process.
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12. Area of joint focus (shared workspace)
Agenda:
ad hot meeting process
Telepointer
(deixis)
Participants:
group awareness
Indirect communication:
feedback and control
Direct communication: feedthrough upon
text or voice chat shared artefacts
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13. 13

14. 14

15. 15

16. 16

17. Comparing with ThinkTank
• ThinkTank: needs a Flash plug in, provides a small
number of tools, smaller developer base with
ActionScript, mainly used for collocated decision
meetings, lacks integrated communication and
coordination support, cannot run in devices not
supporting flash, e.g. iPhone and iPad
• Comparing with ThinkTank, PowerMeeting
– Can be accessed by any standard Web browser (no need to
install a plug in)
– Is more open and extendable in terms of groupware tools
available
– Has integrated communication and coordination support for
distributed facilitation
17

18. Google Wave
Lack of real time support in
social networking(?) New media that merge
key features of e-mail,
instant messaging, wikis,
and social networking
Integrated into
other systems
live richtext
threaded editing,
conversations, OT,
??
Scalability?
Google Wave
not widely adopted
Mixed async and sync
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19. 19

20. Comparing with Google Wave (May, 2009)
• Google Wave: strong in richtext editing, its operational
transformation concurrency control methods are specific to its
operations on text editing, weak on task-specific tool support (the
capability of its gadgets extension is very limited), system
objectives not very clear, not easy to understand and use, project
ended due to low adoption
• Comparing with Google Wave, PowerMeeting (June, 2008)
– Supports the development of full-fledged groupware with more
complex data structures and operations
– Applies an optimistic concurrency control methods applicable to such
data structures for wide range of groupware applications
– Focus on group work with textual and voice chat as communication
and coordination means
– Offers distributed facilitation support for a well coordinated meeting
process
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21. Data from Google Analytics
(from 13 Nov 2008 to 19 Oct 2010)
• 1454 users from 74 counties/territories
• Avg. Time on Site: 00:03:42
• Top screen resolution: 1280x800, 25.35%;
1024x768, 21.96%; 1280x1024, 18.36%, …
• Connecting speed: T1, 42.49%; DSL, 28.61%;
Unknown 21.92%; Cable, 5.81%; Dialup,
1.09%
• Used 8 browsers: Firebox, 33.96%; Chrome,
29.57%; Internet Exporer, 27.85%; Safari,
6.48%; Opera, 1.30%
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22. Results on PowerMeeting
• With good groupware performance in term of round
trip time (well below sub second on average).
• The optimistic concurrency control mechanism has a
good test result (for keep data consistency).
• The framework and programming model has been
successfully used by less experience Java developers
(students) to develop various groupware tools
• The systems have been used in case studies on
managing student group projects, integration with
Facebook and Blackboard, team building activities in
induction event, group decision support
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23. Concluding remarks
• This work is the first to demonstrate that
standard Web networking technologies and
standard Web browsers can support full-
fledged highly interactive real-time groupware
that offer a desktop-application-like rich user
experience
• More work is needed to further investigate its
adoption, distributed facilitation support, and
its integration with other popular Web 2.0
systems
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24. Links
• PowerMeeting website (Introduction and Demos):
– http://www.powermeeting.co.uk
• Wang, W. 2008. PowerMeeting on CommonGround: web based synchronous groupware with
rich user experience. In Proceedings of the ACM Hypertext 2008 Workshop on Collaboration
and Collective intelligence (Pittsburgh, PA, USA, June 19 - 21, 2008). WebScience '08, New
York, NY, 35-39. DOI=http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1379157.1379166
• Wang, W. and French, S. 2008. A multi-dimensional framework for facilitating wide
participation and common understanding. In Proceedings of the ACM Hypertext 2008
Workshop on Collaboration and Collective intelligence (Pittsburgh, PA, USA, June 19 - 21,
2008). WebScience '08, New York, NY, 23-27.
DOI=http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1379157.1379164
• Wang, W. 2008. Powermeeting: gwt-based synchronous groupware (A demo at HT98). In
Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (Pittsburgh,
PA, USA, June 19 - 21, 2008). ACM HT '08, New York, NY, 251-252.
DOI=http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1379092.1379150
• Stephen Mogan, Weigang Wang, "The Impact of Web 2.0 Developments on Real-Time
Groupware," socialcom, pp.534-539, 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on Social
Computing, 2010, DOI= http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/SocialCom.2010.84
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25. PowerMeeting Framework for wide participation
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Adapted from Cunningham’s innovation framework (WikiSystem 2006) and the success factors of many Web 2.0 systems

26. PowerMeeting framework for coordination
and shared understanding
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Derived from Piaget’s cognitive theory, Clark’s social cognitive theory, and Dix’s CSCW framework