Topic 6 - Semantic Web

DGTL 12002 Assignment Task 6

10 July 2012

Semantic Web

Week 6 questions
1) Personal comment about the advantages and risks involved in social graph technologies.
2) Using readings from this week and other items you may have researched for yourself about ‘Social Graph’, discuss the pros and cons of this kind of personal data interlinking.

Advantages and Risks in Social Graph Technologies

A social graph describes "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related", Fitzpatrick, 'Social Graph: Concepts and Issues' (viewed 20 August 2012).

Social media sites and apps being downloaded and accessed to this date are growing at a rapid rate. Many of these applications require a social graph to link people and information together. Social graphs are important as they contain viable information needed to allow apps and other software to work together synergistically.

ADVANTAGES

I believe some advantages associated with 'social graph' technologies are 

• the ability to make web data more accessible to users,
• they can make the web more user friendly, 
• it is easier to find new friends and understand how people relate to you.  

As Brad Fitzpatrick explained in 'Introduction to the social graph' (viewed 20 August 2012), Graph API will be able to suggest friends to you through your online identity website. This could be either a social media or your personal/business website. It will expand your network and link many friends to you.

RISKS

Risks involved with social graph technologies include 

• privacy issues around the security of your information, 
• ownership of information, 
• possibilities for hackers to get into your account and access your information. 

In his blog 'Social Graph: Concepts and Issues', (viewed 20 August 2012),  Iskold quoted Fitzpatrick "One problem is that you currently need many logins for all the different social media sites you are a member of”. He also speaks of some risk issues “Another issue is portability and ownership of an individual’s information, explicitly and implicitly revealed while using social media”.

The impact of this I feel could be extremely negative.

FOAF

3) Why you might or why you might not make such a foaf file available to the world at large?

It may not be a good idea to make a foaf file available to the world at large because of the risk of allowing the computer thinking for me. There is a risk my information could be too easily available for others to see.

If my foaf file were in cyberspace and connected with other types of electrical gadgets and smart accessories, chance meetings with other foaf members would happen too often and would seem completely unnatural. It could also be a problem because there may be too many friend suggestions coming through and links to people you may not like. I could feel loss of control and my freedom could be taken away and the integrity of my social site-map out there in cyberspace could be compromised.

Other issues could arise such as privacy, information and identity theft. Programs could be created to bypass the security and use my information for data analysis. 
As a casual social networker I would be quite annoyed with interference from a computer source and could do without the friend prompting.

Figure 1 shows the application form for a foaf profile. This page can be embedded into any webpage.

Figure 2 shows visually what a foaf network looks like.

figure 1: FOAF-a-Matic (viewed 20 August 2012)

figure 2: FoaF: the 'friend of a friend' project (viewed 21 August 2012)

References

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Brad Fitzpatrick, Introduction to the Social Graph (viewed 20 August 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabCylbapuM&feature=youtu.be

FOAF-a-Matic (viewed 20 August 2012)

http://www.ldodds.com/foaf/foaf-a-matic

Foaf Project Blog 'A purpose of Foaf' (viewed 20 July 2012)

http://blog.foaf-project.org/page/4/

FoaF: the 'friend of a friend' project (viewed 21 August 2012)

http://rdfweb.org/foaf/

Social Graph: Concepts and Issues (viewed 20 July 2012)

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_graph_concepts_and_issues.php

What is a social graph- Concepts and Issues (viewed 20 August 2012)
http://hackingalert.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/what-is-social-graph-concepts-and.html

Topic 5 - Api and mashups Web Generations

DGTL 12002 Assignment Task 5

10 August 2012

Api and mashups

Week 5 question 
1) Familiarise yourself with the range of API's in the Google Maps family
2) Find a site of significance via google maps
3) Imagine a unique service that could be provided linking maps to other programmes or data.

What is an API?The editors from 'Programmable Web' (viewed 10 August 2012) suggests an API (application programming interface) to have a set of functions that one computer program makes available to other programs so they can talk directly.

Seeking a deeper understanding on how APIs work, I found the description of the    Facebook API to clarify this.
"The Facebook API is a platform for building applications that are available to the members of the social network of Facebook. The API allows applications to use the social connections and profile information to make applications more involving, and to publish activities to the news feed and profile pages of Facebook, subject to individual users privacy settings. With the API, users can add social context to their applications by utilizing profile, friend, page group, photo, and event data. The API uses RESTful protocol and responses are localized and in XML format" 'Facebook API' (viewed 10 August 2012).

Site of Significance A site of significance that shows google mapping is 'mibazaar' (viewed 10 August 2012).

The site has 3 API's.

• Google Mapping - Google map code embedding,
• Yahoo Geocoding Web Service - This allows you to find the specific latitude and longitude for an address,
• YouTube - It provides the capability to search for videos, retrieve standard feeds, and see related content.

figure 1: mibazaar (viewed 10 August 2012)

Mibazaar site provides information on celebrities. Details such as where the celebrities are from, star popularity through TV/web and how much the individual earns.

My idea for an API
A Google Maps API would be a great implementation in an App for a music concert or festival. I could imagine a service providing mashups and APIs being of 'value' servicing people who will attend different types of events. The mashup site will then allow the user to feel at ease knowing they can pre-programme for the event they are attending. There will be a need to obtain the App through good marketing when people know of its availability.

Some of the key features would include:

• Google Map display of the venue,
• who's playing on what stage, where and when, lost and found, St Johns Ambulance, location of restrooms,
• alerts and reminders to go off prior to start of individual concert event. An addition to a  Map will help predict the time it will take to get from the point where you are at to the next place you want to be,
• a programme planner could automatically be created when the user types in the band names they wish to see while at the concert,
• Others logged on will be able to see if anyone from their contact list is at the venue (but only if they allow it) through using their Google Maps API.

I would use a mashup of combining data from BOM(Bureau of Meteorology), Google Maps for venue and location services, public services affecting the area such as news, internal sources of data including customer alerts.

The user would need to download this app through a website or app store.



figure 2: example of working Google Map.

View Larger Map

Figure 3 shows example of where you would go and get the Australian Bureau of Meteorology API.

The button on the left that suggests clicking it tracks the API. The site offers a search menu to find other APIs, mashups and code developers. It is an informative website.

Figure 4 shows a search page for an API.

figure 3: (viewed 6 August 2012)

figure 4: search page for a news API (viewed 6 August 2012)

References

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Mashups in the Enterprise (viewed 6 August 2012)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb906060.aspx

mibazaar (viewed 10 August 2012)
http://www.mibazaar.com/top100celebrities/

Facebook API (viewed 10 August 2012)
http://www.programmableweb.com/api/facebook

Programmable Web (viewed 10 August 2012)
http://www.programmableweb.com/faq#Q2

Search page for a news API (viewed 6 August 2012)
http://www.programmableweb.com/search/news