1. Bridging the virtual with the physical
space
Panayotis Antoniadis
(joint work with Ileana Apostol and Tridib Banerjee)
T-Labs Networking Lecture Series
July 2009
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris
University of Southern California, Los Angeles

2. Outline
 The NetHood vision
 Current practice
 Research agenda
 Incentive mechanisms and social software
1

3. Together we stand …
 Social networks
 Information
 Knowledge
 Content
 Resources
2

4. … divided we fall
 Do you know your neighbors?
 Social capital?
Anonymity
 Conviviality?
Alienation
 Civic engagement? Fear
 Collective action?
 Plenty of room for improvement!
3

5. NetHood
From facebook to face-block
4

6. NetHood ingredients
 Pick at least two
 Neighborhood community
 On-line community
 P2P system
 User-owned WMN
 Cross-discipline research
and practice
 NetHood social software
5

7. Neighborhood communities
6

8. Vancouver Neighborhood Ecovillage

9. SozialeStadt in Berlin, Friedrichshein

10. Hybrid communities
9

11. In the city
10

12. In the neighborhood
11

13. In the building
12

14. P2P systems: resource sharing
13

15. P2P systems: resource
sharing+social
14

16. User-owned networks
15

17. Neighbourhood/City Wireless
Mesh networks
16

18. Grassroots community wireless
networks
“Seattle Wireless started in 2000, and
back then it was a simple idea, with huge
technical hurdles, high costs and a hard (but
novel) sell to the public. Now the technology
exists, the hardware is cheap, and all we need
are people to realize the dream of a locally
grown network.”
17

19. Different layers of cooperation required!
Social
selfish Application
or (Resource sharing)
altruistic?
Network
Access
Physical

20. Challenge #1: Common interest
 Community identity
 Attention
 Critical mass
 Research
 Social software design: bridge the virtual with the physical
 Community representation
 Incentive mechanisms: Participation
19

21. Trade-off: Inherent diversity
 Acceptance
 Compromise
 Curiosity
 Research
 E-democracy
 Aggregation into collective outcome
 Customization, adaptation over time
20

22. Challenge #2: Privacy
 Information sharing
 Information exposure
 Anonymity
 Research
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nnova/3455407624
 P2P implementation
 Private vs. public
 Incentive mechanisms: Trust
21

23. Challenge #3: Independence
 Self-organized network
 Freedom of expression
 Public goods
 Research
 Wireless mesh networking: performance, interference, …
 Political perspective
 Incentive mechanisms: Resource sharing
22

24. Trade-off: Critical mass
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manganite/173253613/ 23

25. Challenge #4: Incentives
 Motivations are required for
 Participation
 Time
 Trust
 Resource sharing
 Inherent asymmetries
 Topology
 Capabilities
 Motivations
24

26. More trade-offs
 Participation vs. addiction
 Accountability vs. anonymity
 Extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivations (crowding-
out)
 Sophisticated rules vs. ease of use
25

27. NetHood principles
 Cross-layer
 Cross-discipline
 The details matter
 From practice to theory
 More than Internet access
 Customization
 Incentives: from economics to social psychology
26

28. Extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivations
 Direct benefits
 Payments, resource exchange
 Long-term benefits
 Feedback, expected reciprocity, socializing
 Self-image
 Sense of efficacy, pride, status, popularity
 Community
 Community spirit, belonging, norms
 Intrinsic
 Interest, fun, inherent satisfaction
27

29. Internet access sharing: reciprocity
28

30. Internet access offering
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2006/06/can-you-tell-us-1.php
29

31. Thank you
30

32. Other incentives …
31

33. Idea: Cross-layer incentive mechanisms
Social
Visibility Acknowledgement
Status Privileges
Relationships/Trust
Application
punishment
Resource sharing
Network reward
Packet forwarding
Physical & reciprocity
access
Media access

34. Key concept: social software
 HCI + information management + rules
 Profile page (self-representation)
 Information management (private vs. public info)
 Status/privileges (characterizations, moderators)
 Feedback (view count, favourites, text, history, events)
 Community (outcome, groups, forums, support)
 Socializing (private messages, friendship)
 User participation (web2.0)
 Adaptation over time
33

35. Successful stories
 Myspace
 Facebook
 Flickr
 Wikipedia
 Slashdot
 But also many unsuccessful …
 The details matter!
34

36. Research agenda
 Technology-aware social software
 P2P implementation
 Modelling and formalization
 Resource
sharing as an enabler for
community building?
35

37. More research questions
Computer science
 Wireless networking and p2p implementation
 Performance
 Cross-layer issues
 Resource control and monitoring
 Flexibility for contribution
 Resource sharing visualization
 Trust
 Key management
 Exploit special characteristics
36

38. More research questions
Urban planning
 Bridging the virtual with the physical
 Virtual  physical (terminals, events, symbolic elements)
 Physical  virtual (space representation, identity)
 Building common interest and community identity
 Discovering the soul of a community (e-flanerie)
 Feedback collection and analysis
 Places on the net
 Understand the notion of place in the virtual space
 Place-oriented social software design
37

39. Summary
 Cross-disciplinary work is necessary
 Easy to say but …
 From practice to theory
 Difficult to publish :-)
 Keep in touch:
 http://www.nethood.org (under construction)
38

40. No matter how hard we try we
cannot escape reality :-)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bekathwia/2462986853/ 39

41. APPENDIX
Social software details
40

42. Vision, promise
A free encyclopedia
 Free content
 Free software
 “Picture the world”
41

43. Community outcome
42

44. Personal image (external)
43

45. Personal image (external)
44

46. Personal image (external)
45

47. Feedback (local activity)
46

48. Feedback (local activity)
47

49. Feedback (local activity)
48

50. Follower, contact or friend?
49

51. User interactions
50

52. Feedback (contribution)
51

53. Entering the flow …
52

54. Filtering/rating
53

55. Filtering/rating
54

56. Space representation

57. Space representation

58. Space representation

59. Technology-aware social software
Examples
 User profile
 A technologically enhanced social image of the user
 Personal feedback for resource contribution
 From the system, from neighbors
 Visualization
 Socialization
 “My network friends”
 Sense of community
 “Our network”
58

60. Related publications
I. Apostol, P. Antoniadis, and T. Banerjee. Flânerie between Net and Place: Possibilities for
Participation in Planning, Under publication in the Journal of Planning Education and
Research (JPR).
I. Apostol, P. Antoniadis, and T. Banerjee. Places on the Net. 14th International Conference
on Urban Planning and Regional Development in the Information Society, Cities 3.0,
Barcelona, April 2009.
I. Apostol, P. Antoniadis, and T. Banerjee. From Face-Block to Facebook or the Other Way
Around?”, International workshop on Sustainable City and Creativity, Naples, September
2008.
P. Antoniadis. “Incentives for resource sharing in ad hoc networks: going beyond rationality”.
Book Chapter. In Boon-Chong Seet (ed.) Mobile Peer-to-Peer Computing for Next
Generation Distributed Environments. To appear.
P. Antoniadis, B. Le Grand, A. Satsiou, L. Tassiulas, R. Aguiar, J.P. Barraca, and S.
Sargento.“Community building over Neighborhood Wireless Mesh Networks”. IEEE Society
and Technology. Special issue on Potentials and Limits of Cooperation in Wireless
Communications. March 2008.
P. Antoniadis and B. Le Grand. “Self-organized virtual communities: Bridging the gap
between web-based communities and p2p systems”. International Journal of Web-based
Communities (IJWBC). To appear.
P. Antoniadis, B. Le Grand, and M. Dias de Amorim.“Socially-Motivated Wireless
Neighborhood Communities”, International Workshop on Wireless Community Networks,
Hangzhou, China, August 2008.
59