IBM Delivers Telco Innovations to Improve Customer Experience

When I left for Barcelona a few days ago I looked forward to introducing the things that my colleagues and I have been working on because I was interested in hearing feedback from various kinds of people in the industry. I certainly didn't expect to read about the projects on CNN. However, they and many others have picked up the IBM press release about what we are showing at Mobile World Congress.



http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0359637.htm

PRESENCE MEETS THE "GOOD SAMARITAN"
IBM Research demonstrated how mobile phones and "presence" technology combined with health records can provide a potential "good samaritan" with information on how to aid people in critical medical situations. This combination of IBM Research capabilities and IBM WebSphere Presence Server exemplifies IBM's ability to create enhanced mobile applications for everyday life.

Another project in which I was very involved was also mentioned. I did not mention it previously in this blog because it was confidential, but Vodafone has now agreed to publicize it so it is also mentioned in the article.

SOCIAL NETWORKS GO MOBILE
IBM collaborated with its client, leading global service provider Vodafone, to extend social networks to any mobile device by taking advantage of communication enablers such as IBM WebSphere Presence Server. Demonstrated for the first time at Mobile World Congress, consumers can communicate with their social network friends regardless of where they are with voice and SMS from either a PC or a mobile phone.

"Working together with IBM, Vodafone developed 'BuddyComm,' an integrated communication service for social network users," said Mike Walker, director of Vodafone Group Research & Development. "This project was a unique opportunity for Vodafone and IBM to bring together research and innovation capability from both sides to achieve goals which neither company could reach by itself, providing real benefit to customers who are active on social networks."

Social Network Identity Verification

Originally I had planned on discussing something concerned with cellular phone use. However, I find myself still so appalled by the case I discussed in my previous post, that I will instead open a discussion about possible ways to avoid bullying by social network users.

The main approach today is to attempt to limit use of social networking sites to those over a certain age. Therefore, there are those who are now proposing that age verification be legislated. This article discusses the problems associated with such an approach. The most obvious issue of course is that minors do not have any identification (drivers license, credit card, etc). Any scheme that relies on using a parent's ID is doomed for failure for many reasons, as is discussed in the article.

So, now I am putting on my thinking cap. Is it really only an age issue? Wouldn't it be a healthier environment for all if we all knew which are impostors and which are portraying their real identity? Even if we couldn't provide a 100% accurate indication, wouldn't it be helpful to have some kind of indication (real vs. impostor) with perhaps an accompanying reliability score?

With my technical background I of course have lots of ideas running through my head about how to provide information that could contribute to a real vs. impostor decision. However, I believe that user input could also be an important source of information. We take into account other people's opinions about everything from books to washing machines before we make a purchase. Perhaps it would be helpful to receive input from others about whether Joe Smith on Facebook is real or an impostor.

Please express your views about this, as well as making other suggestions about how you think we can make social networks and the other modern modes of communication safer for our children ... and for ourselves.

Social Networking Tragedy

Social Networks are the latest rage these days among young and old. They started out as ways for students to stay in touch and make new friends, and are now used by anyone who is someone. MySpace and Facebook are the leaders at the moment, but there are many more. The basic idea is that you can create a page for yourself that includes who you are, a picture of yourself, your hobbies, favorite music, etc. You can then invite friends to join your social network. If they agree they appear on your page as your friends, and you are added to their list of friends. In this way you create a social network of friends - 1st degree (those you know directly) and 2nd degree (friends of friends). Within this network you can chat, share music, send updates, send virtual drinks, and do all kinds of other stuff. The sky is basically the limit since these sites provide developer kits enabling the users themselves to create new applications.

While this sounds like a lot of fun, I recently read of the tragic death of Megan Meier. Megan, 13 years old, was befriended by a 16 year old boy on MySpace. With her mother's approval, Megan added Josh to her list of friends on the social networking site and a long distance MySpace friendship developed. However, "Josh" was in reality the peeved parents of a girl who lived down the street from Megan. As this article describes, Megan ultimately commited suicide after "Josh" began slandering her on MySpace.

When I logged onto Facebook the first time I was both fascinated and appalled by the whole idea. Yes, it's a great way to meet new people and it's great way to share pictures, updates, etc with my family and friends. However, I was amazed by the amount of information people were willing to put on the internet about themselves. I immediately thought of how kids could bully each other using this medium, and of course everyone's fears of pedophiles. The same rules that apply for instant messaging which I mentioned in a previous post are true here. Kids shouldn't interact with people they don't know.

There are laws against impersonating a doctor, lawyer, policeman, etc in real life. There definitely should be laws against an adult impersonating anyone for the purpose of misleading or harming a child whether it be in real life or cyberlife. In my worst dreams I never imagined a parent would use a social networking site as a weapon against another child.

At a minimum, it seems to me that we need a way to identify real people on these sites vs. impersonators.