1. Introduction to
Social Reading
Technologies
Frédéric Kaplan
frederic.kaplan@ep!.ch
twitter: @frederickaplan

2. New social technologies
(for sharing, for collaborating, for discovering)
+
New reading interfaces
(computer, smartphone, tablet, augm. paper)
=
Social reading technologies

3. 3
important things to
understand about
social reading technologies

4. -1-
Social reading practices
are not new.
Reading and writing are not solitary activities.
There are many existing social reading practices.
There will be more.

5. -2-
Social reading technologies
can be used with both paper and
digital reading interfaces.
Paper in not dead. Digital reading interfaces are nice. This
debate is a wrong one. We can have the best of both worlds.

6. -3-
Social reading technologies
may o"er an alternative to
machine-learning based
analytics
Data mining technologies will certainly create interesting
representations of our reading practices, but social reading
technologies practices may o"er more relevant services.

7. -1-
Social reading practices
are not new.

8. The classical imagery:
Reading as
an asocial practice.

10. This classical imagery
is supported by the
phenomenology of
the reading experience

12. Diving into a book

14. Reading as an
intimate and private
experience
Writer Reader

15. But reading is also a
social practice.

16. Can you name existing
social reading
practices?

17. Reading together
synchronously

19. Institutionally driven
social reading :
Churchs, Schools, ...

20. Information driven
social reading :
newspapers, blogs ...

21. Reading together
asynchronously

22. Book clubs, circles,
cafés, libraries.

23. Books as social media

28. Readers
Documents

29. Readers trajectories
in the documents space.
Documents trajectories
in the readers space.

30. New
social reading
services

31. focus on readers space
New “book-club”
services
launching conversations about
books, discovering new books
based on readers with similar
taste

32. focus on document space
New “folksonomies”
to classify books
Emergent tagging conventions
and vocabularies to talk about
reading experiences

33. focus on trajectories
New “geolocalization”
services
“check-in” in a book. Becoming
a “mayor” of a book. See who
checked-in before, etc.

37. -2-
Social reading technologies
can be used with both paper and
digital reading interfaces.

40. A not so interesting
debate

41. You don’t have to
choose.

42. Books as resources

43. QR Code URL

44. QR Code URL
Bookmarks
comments
images
videos
sound
...

47. Book page

50. Bookmarks
Comments
Images
Videos
Sound
...

51. underline
share

53. Exercise
De#ne a versatile
format for describing
“bookmarks”

54. http://www.openbookmarks.org
Launched by James Bridle in 2010

55. How should we
represent a
“bookmark” at a
“position” in a
“book” ?

56. “bookmark”
- pointer : a position marker
(like a dog-ear)
- highlight : a position marker +
snippet of text for the book
- note : a position marker +
additional content added by the
reader

57. “book”
How can we identify a book ?
- Book title + Book author
- Book edition ISBN
- Universal Work Number :
OpenLibrary or LibraryThing ID
- Image ? Bookcover,
Bookpage ?

58. “position”
- page + line + character (dep. of
an edition)
- % of text
- A long-enough text string (long
to search)
A combination of these ?

59. “position”
What about hierarchical
documents (text book,
magazine, dictionaries)?
What about “augmented”
books ?

60. “position”
Procedural reference systems
(CHAP1:LINE-45)
> #C:1:L:45
(PAGE6:COMMENT4)
> #P:6:CO:4
(PAGE6:COMMENT4:VIDEO2)
> #P:6:CO:4:V:2
(PAGE6:COMMENT4: VIDEO2:TIME:45)
> #P:6:CO:4:V:2:T:45
(PAGE6:COMMENT4:VIDEO2:WORD:3)
> #P:6:CO:4:V:2:W:3
(ISBN:9780141182803:CHAP1:LINE-45)
> #I:9780141182803:C:1:L:45
(ID: OL86344W:PTEXT:45.75:WORD:“ROBOT”)
> #I:OL86344W:PT:45.75:W:ROBOT

61. Bookmark exchange format
(e.g. by J.Bridle)
<bmxl>
<Bookmark>
<work>
<title>Ulysses</title>
<author>James Joyce</author>
<isbn>9780141182803</isbn>
<id>OL86344W</id>
</work>
<mark>
<position>123</position>
<note>Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead</note>
</mark>
<meta>
<timestamp>2010-12-01T15:33Z</timestamp>
<latitude>51.52311534332867</latitude>
<longitude>-0.08179262280464172</longitude>
</meta>
</Bookmark>
</bmxl>

62. or... Twitter like syntax
#I:9780141182803:C:1:L:45 This makes me
think of http://tinyurl.com/yx2b
#T:2010-12-01T15:33Z #GPS:
51.52311534332867:-0.08179262280464172

63. -3-
Social reading technologies
may o"er an alternative to
machine-learning based
analytics

64. Reading Analytics
- what you read and have read (sequences of
documents)
- when and where you read (timestamp,
geolocalization)
- how you read (time, eye-tracking)

65. A new gold rush...

66. Reading analytics
are automatically
collected
by many ereading
services

67. Self-reporting
and book scrobbling
services

68. Vision-based book
recognition
- Barcode recognition
- Cover recognition
- Page recognition
- Annotations recognition

70. Andrea Mazzei’s research
on annotation recognition

71. A new understanding
of what reading is ...

72. ... but an uncertain use
in terms of services

73. Book
recommendations
automatic vs.
user generated

75. The limits of user
modeling.

76. Content analysis
Automatic semantic analysis
vs.
user-driven semantic tagging

78. Users can invent syntactic
solutions for their own needs
# twitter hashtag

79. Users can invent syntactic
solutions for their own needs
#I:9780141182803:W:3425 #PLACE:TOKYO
#I:9780141182803:W:3434 #NAME:NICOLASBOUVIER

80. The limits of semantic
data mining

81. WRAP-UP
Social reading technologies
1. are based on existing practices
2. work with both printed and
digital documents
3. have potentially a higher
potential in terms of services than
machine learning approaches

82. frederic.kaplan@ep!.ch
twitter:@frederickaplan
http://fkaplan.com
http://craft.ep!.ch
Semester, Master,
Ph-D projects available.