SXSW 2009 Presentation Submission + My Panel Picker Picks
A few weeks ago, I saw that SXSW Interactive was accepting applications for panel ideas. I’ve been playing a lot with analyzing social networks and network structure in and out of my coursework at the University of Michigan, so I wrote a panel proposal for a walkthrough of network theory and how it’s relevant and useful to companies and products that have some kind of social component.
My general motivation for proposing this is that I’m sure that a lot of companies have some really interesting network data about their users that isn’t being put to good use. Sure, a company like Microsoft or Yahoo will have their own research labs (this paper from Yahoo Research about the evolution of social networks is totally awesome), but smaller companies will most likely lack the resources and skills to do interesting network analysis. Hopefully my presentation will serve as a good starting point for people with access to rich network data to produce some really interesting data and maybe even share it. This kind of data is usually difficult to get access to, so it’s kind of a shame if the data exists and isn’t being used.
Anyway, check out my official submission here. It’d be cool if I could get some supporters to vote and comment on the thing, but I guess that might become kind of spammy as well. I also checked out a bunch of the proposals on the SXSW Panel Picker. Here’s a few I think look interesting:
Ruby Sinreich, Understanding Social Networks, Beyond the Graph – This one seems probably the most similar to mine, so it makes sense that it looks really interesting to me. It looks like rather than focusing on theory, this panel will be more practical in nature.
Mussie Shore, Bustin’ Social out of the Network – This one looks neat mainly because the speaker founded a mobile software company that was acquired by Google and now works on OpenSocial. Plus there’s a ton of positive comments already (wonder if he’s got his possee on this).
ian nieves, Discovery: The Future of Friend Search – Searching people is a problem that I’ve always had an interest in. Using network centrality measure makes sense to rank which people come up in a search. I’m interested in seeing what kind of algorithm this guy is using for friend search.
Russ Unger, Friendship is Dead – I just love the idea of this panel. The fact that people aren’t really people anymore; they’re just items to collect in Facebook. Kind of like Pokemon.
I haven’t gotten through all the panels but I’m hoping to skim through all the sections I might find interesting. Hopefully my idea will be interesting enough to be selected. Remember, sign up for a SXSW account, check out the Panel Picker, and vote for stuff (including me)!