alleshannes.

As it is one of my main intentions to (let the machine) draw evidence about a user’s social network and his individual sympathies from a rather dry collection of hard facts I will have a closer look on the data that can be accessed and collected.
The possiblity to log my communication behavior is based on the assumption that we communicate most of the time by technological means. Of course, this is not always true, which will require a chapter of its own: How do we communicate outside the “technological world” (talk, write letters, wave at someone, even give s.o. a wink), why do we do it, can it still be registered (by scanning the Bluetooth-Environment e.g.)?

In order to know what I am talking about, I want to take a closer look on the raw datafields available (as far as I recognized them), where I can get them from and whether they can be found in the datasets of the Helsinki Context Project already (cp)

datafields by medium

number of encounters	phone call	phone sms	mail	instant mes.	physical	cp
known person	addressbook	addressbook	addressbook	buddylist	BT-log	cp
social context	–	sms: several recipients	to, cc, bcc	multiuser chat?	other BTs around
direction	initiator	sender/recipient	sender/recipient	initiator	–
date/time	phone call	phone sms	mail	instant mes.	physical	cp
age of contact	(known for how long, within the system?)
duration of encounter	phone call	length?	filesize	instant mes.	(BT: difficult/slow)	cp
place	cellID, (GPS)	cellID, (GPS)	IP?	IP?	cellID, (GPS)	cp
attachments?	–	–	mail	instant mes.	exchange via BT?
profile	loud, vibrate, …	loud, vibrate, …	–	status	(BT active?)	cp
calendar context (if available)	if in use	if in use	calendar app?	calendar app?	on the mobile	cp

 

There are some simple combinations that allow conclusions already:

• frequency: number of encounters per time
• regularity: a returning pattern over time (each Monday e.g.)
• type of network: lots of contacts with few people vs. few contacts with lots of people
• diversity: different media in use
• type of node: passive (receiver) or active (sender)
• groups: contacts often appearing together

Now, I will have to look out for a good parser (or write one on my own) and to get the ContextPhone client run on a Nokia N73.

[update 2007-05-28]

data fields by categories

The more interesting matrix maps the data fields to personal categories (that somehow reflect intimacy)