BuzzMaps: a prototype social proxy for predictive utility

Abstract

The design of BuzzMaps, social proxies within Magic Bookshelves, is presented. As defined by Erickson and Kellogg, a social proxy is a minimalist graphical representation of salient social activity. Each BuzzMap is intended to increase predictive utility, the ability of the user to predict the relevance of an item before consumption.A Magic Bookshelf is a collaborative application for collecting news items, capturing social activity, and enabling social translucence. Magic Bookshelves are also places where recommendation systems can leave their findings. The goal of Magic Bookshelves is to flow more news items of more interest to a group of users.The major points of the design are the selection of salient social activities for predictive utility, the conceptual design of a social proxy to present these activities, and implementation of the proxy as a visual design. This work is novel in specifically targeting predictive utility through a social proxy.