5/27/2016
`
`The Sociable Web
`
`The Sociable Web
`Judith S. Donath
`Niel Robertson
`MIT Media Lab
`
`Abstract
`
`The World Wide Web is a popular place. The number of people who use it is growing rapidly and the statistics on many
`pages show daily access by thousands of readers. Yet wandering about the Web is a solitary pursuit: one is unaware of the
`presence of the many fellow explorers. We are developing ways of making Web exploration a more communal endeavor.
`
`We are currently developing an experimental server and client that allows Web users to see who else is on a page,
`communicate with them, and travel around the Web as a group. Information on the Web is usually organized and specific;
`users accessing the same page are likely to be in search of the same type of information and share similar interests.
`Providing them with the ability to communicate with each other can facilitate information searches and help foster
`community.
`
`Furthermore, the popularity of various live conferencing systems (e.g. IRC, the chatrooms of AOL, social MUDs, etc.)
`attests to the usefulness of real-time talk interfaces. Adding communicative abilities to Mosaic's easy access to many
`different types of media makes it possible to create conference sessions in which the users can insert hypertext links, sounds
`and images amidst their normal conversational text.
`
`The Web is a Social Environment.
`
`The Web is an information space, a place where one can find papers, conference announcements, and weather maps. It is
`also a social space, a place where people present their credentials, whether as established research scientists with impressive
`vita's and selected bibliographies, or as electronic trend-setters with eclectic web links and obscure lists of outrageous bands.
`Good Web citizens provide links to the CERN server, the perl info page and the beginner's guide to HTML: they want to
`help and encourage their fellow page builders. Teenagers on the Web have the electronic equivalent of the black concert T-
`shirt: links to Wired, to Adam Curry's Metaverse, and to the Terrorist's Handbook. For the home-page builder seeking to
`create a self-portrait in hypertext links, the Web provides a vast and varied selection.
`
`Yet what good is a portrait if there is no audience to see it? The challenge, if one wants to be seen, is to make a page so
`compelling in its utility or oddity that others will add links to it. Or simply talk about it. The social function of the Web
`extends beyond its borders - pointers to particularly amusing or informative Web sites are passed along the virtual
`grapevine: they are forwarded by email, posted to mailing-lists, appended to finger files. Such pages are truly destinations,
`visited by hundreds or thousands of Web explorers daily.
`
`Each visitor, however, experiences the site in complete solitude. For some sites, this is fine. Many pages serve no social
`function: the visitor to The Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides is looking for references, not
`acquaintances. Yet at other sites the isolation is unfortunate, for they are ideally suited to be gathering places for like-minded
`individuals. The X-Ray Server, for instance, says that it is "dedicated to providing information of interest to the XUV and X-
`ray spectroscopic community." And there are countless others. There are are pages for those interested in numerical
`aerodynamic simulations and for those seeking technical information about MBONE or advice about quilting. There are
`pages for runners, for Kiss fans, for Oliver North supporters and for gay-rights activists. These pages draw people who share
`research interests, world views, obsessions; yet, they are unable to communicate with - or even sense the presence of - each
`other.
`
`The Sociable Web allows people to see who else is on a page and to communicate with them (and to communicate not only
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`The Sociable Web
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`with words, but with sounds, pictures, and links to other places). It also allows people to travel around the Web together as
`group. It makes the Web into a social environment.
`
`The Sociable Web Project
`
`The Sociable Web project consists of a modified Web browser and server. The browser looks like an ordinary browser, and
`on pages not served by a Sociable Web server, it functions normally. On Sociable Web pages, however, it provides a number
`of social and collaborative features. Most notably, it shows who else is on the pages and it allows the user to strike up
`conversations or to join in ongoing discussions.
`
`Seeing who else is on a page. A "Who's Online" window shows who else is on the page. People can be seen as simple text
`strings - their name and their host machine - or they can provide a small graphic to represent themselves.
`
`
`Text version
`
`
`Graphic version
`
`This window lets the user quickly scan for a particular person, such as the owner of the page or an acquaintance often found
`at this spot. It also gives the viewer a sense of the activity level of the page: are there only a couple of people here or is this a
`major gathering spot, a favorite Web meeting point?
`
`Virtual location. The Sociable Web system is based on the concept of shared location: you are able to talk only with other
`people who are on the same page. However, the big activity on the Web is wandering - following links, jumping from page
`to page. If you had to literally stay on the same page when conversing with others on it, it would seem confining. Virtual
`locations allow the user to put down an anchor on a particular page - where they appear to remain - and still wander about
`the Web with their main browser window. This allows people to have a real "home" page, a place where they can usually be
`found, without limiting their use of the Web.
`
`Privacy. At times, one does not wish to be sociable. The WebTalk browser allows the user to be invisible. In such a state,
`one may visit Sociable Web pages without showing up in anyone's Who's Online window. However, if not seen, one can't be
`heard: it is necessary to be visible to talk.
`
`
`Name and visibiity setting
`
`One may also participate pseudonymously. Since the connection is specified by machine name and port, one can use any
`name as a "callsign". It will be up to the server to determine whether visitor identity is authenticated and by what
`mechanism: this is part of establishing the general style of the server's conferences.
`
`WebTalk. The main feature of the Sociable Web is WebTalk: the discussions that occur in the context of the Web and that
`use its rich hypermedia capabilities. WebTalk discussions are live: one types a message and it appears instantly (or at least
`reasonably fast) on the screens of the intended recipients. The discussions can be public conferences, open to all, or they can
`be private conversations between two people.
`
`
`Discussion window (try the buttons and links).
`
`Images, sounds, and links to other pages can all be integrated with the flow of words. The WebTalk client includes several
`tools for fluency in hypertext conversation. For instance, the user can highlight a phrase and then, simply by clicking on a
`picture (or link) on any Web page, attach the chosen object to the phrase. When the phrase is sent, the recipient sees it as
`highlighted text; if the recipient clicks on it, he or she will receive the picture (or follow the link).
`
`A WebTalk conversation can transcend smiley-faces. One can have an entire library of eloquent pictorial - or auditory -
`interjections. And a WebTalk conversation can be completely interwoven with the vast resources of the Web. One can point
`to references, counterarguments, examples, expansions - all within a single sentence.
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`Current status. Currently, the Sociable Web system, as described above, is implemented, running, and in the process of
`final debugging. We have a page showing the current status of the Sociable Web; this will also be the place to obtain the
`release code for clients and servers.
`
`As for future work, there are several directions we see this work taking. One is developing the range of server styles. A
`Sociable Web server should be able to determine the nature of the conferences that occur on its grounds. Some might be
`very casual, allowing anyone to create a conference and permitting people to use any name as their identifier (this is for now
`the normal setup). Other servers might wish to be more restrictive, permitting only the page owner or a chosen group of
`people to form (and dissolve) conferences and requiring that participants use their real (or at least, traceable) name. These
`and other variations in server style will help a page owner to create a social atmosphere that best matches the environment of
`the page.
`
`We are also looking into ways of using this interface to create highly interactive Web sites - pages that converse. With the
`WebTalk mechanism, a page should be able answer queries and do searches (and even make simple, yet colorful, small talk)
`-- the page can be interactively updated and immediately downloaded to the client.
`
`Implementation
`
`A WebTalk server is a normal httpd server with some added capabilities: it keeps track of all the users located on pages it
`serves and it relays the data in the public conferences to the participants.
`
`A WebTalk client sends a message to the server whenever it arrives at or leaves from a page. A non-WebTalk server ignores
`these messages; a WebTalk server acknowledges them, letting the client know that it can look for other users on the page.
`The WebTalk server uses these messages to keep track of who is currently on its pages. The message provides the user
`name, host and WebTalk port number - all the information needed to establish contact with that person.
`
`The WebTalk port is a tcp socket that is kept open for data transfer: it is through this socket that the WebTalk discussions
`take place. Private conversations and public conferences are handled differently, to minimize the load on the server. For
`private conversations, the server simply provides the two parties with each other's address; the connection is made directly
`between the two. For public conferences, the server acts as a conduit; the user sends the message to the server, which relays
`it to the other participants. Messages are received with data identifying the sender and the discussion it was sent to (since
`one may be involved in several discussions at once). It is up to the individual WebTalk browser to decide how to
`differentiate between the incoming streams.
`
`About the authors
`
`Judith Donath is a doctoral candidate at the MIT Media Lab, where her research focuses on the design of visual and
`interactive interfaces to online communities. She has taught interface design at Pratt Institute and New York University, and
`has designed and built a variety of "multimedia" programs. She has a Master's degree from the Media Lab and Bachelor's
`degree in History from Yale University.
`judith@media.mit.edu
`
`Niel Robertson is an computer science student at MIT and is the developer of the Sociable Web program. He has worked on
`network simulators, written graphical interface toolkits, and developed and operated a full-featured bulletin-board system.
`nielr@mit.edu
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`http://web.archive.org/web/20011109080750/http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/CSCW/donath/SociableWeb.html
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`Facebook's Exhibit No. 1030
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