1st Workshop on Friend of a Friend, Social Networking and the Semantic Web (FOAF'2004) *1-2 September 2004, Galway, Ireland*, sponsored by SWAD-Europe and DERI *http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/events/foaf-galway/* Introduction ------------ The FOAF (Friend of a Friend ) project explores a unique combination of themes from social networking, search engines, knowledge representation and software development. FOAF was designed as a practical experiment that would highlight the technical, social and business challenges raised by the next generation of "Semantic" Web technology. Over the past few years, the FOAF developer community has been working on standards-based techniques for publishing and harvesting machine-readable descriptions of people, the links between them, and the things they create and do. The working assumption of the project is that such techniques will underpin the deployment of the next generation of Web technology, W3C's "Semantic Web". The FOAF project was created in the expectation that these machine-readable descriptions will grow, as the Semantic Web platform matures, to cover companies, organisations, documents, groups, products, file sharing and many other aspects of life, both online and off. The time has come to evaluate these assumptions in the context of the opportunities and challenges presented by the rise of FOAF and the Semantic Web. Social networking is a recent topic gaining much interest and publicity. Social networking sites are community sites where users can maintain an online network of friends or associates for social or business purposes: whether looking for a job, reconnecting with old friends, moving to a new area, or dating. Most of these sites are based on a centralised architecture: all users' descriptions are stored in one big database. There is, however, growing user and business interest in portability between such sites, and for sophisticated "single sign-on" mechanisms that reduce the need for data re-entry, while allowing users to manifest different aspects of themselves in different contexts. FOAF-based import/export allows such sites to address user demand for control of "their" data; however, many deployment, privacy, authentication and engineering issues have not yet been fully explored. To what extent do mechanisms such as FOAF change the environment they attempt to describe? How can the visibility of personal data be restricted to certain audiences? How can businesses make money when their customers can migrate to new services with increased ease? This workshop on FOAF, social networking and the Semantic Web provides a first chance to discuss the unusual combination of perspectives - academic and scientific, engineering, social, legal and business - drawn together by these trends. The workshop aims to bring together for the first time researchers interested in the effects, analysis and application of social networks on the (Semantic) Web as well as practitioners building applications and infrastructure. The workshop will also try to give a snapshot of current developments, as well as setting a roadmap for the future of both FOAF and social networking - especially in the context of the Semantic Web. Topics of interest for full papers include, but are not limited to the following: * Social network metadata standards * Trust issues in social networks * Profiles of FOAF, subsets, mapping to other vocabularies and formats * Federated digital identity, single sign-on (decentralized identity management) * Business models for the Semantic Web (life after banner advertisements) * Integration with desktop and mobile applications (chat, IM, P2P, Bluetooth, address books, RSS/Atom) * Privacy, etiquette and best practice issues for aggregators * Infrastructure for social networking * Applications of online social networking * Knowledge management with social networks * Mathematical analysis of social networks * Exchange of social network information * Applications of online social networks * Shared annotations * Use of digital signatures and encryption with RDF/XML * RDF-based search engines, data harvesting and syndication * GUIs (browsers, editors) for FOAF and Semantic Web data * Formalisms that address practical problems of heterogenous changing data * Pragmatics of sharing data schemas across subtly different datasets Submission and Important Dates ------------------------------ The workshop will be organized in part around talks presenting selected research results in the relevant fields. Another important part of the workshop will be open discussions, where participants define the agenda themselves, focusing on the interests of the participants with respect to social networking, FOAF, and the Semantic Web. Depending on the nature of the submissions, some time may be allocated to discussion of the future development and coverage of the FOAF specification. We invite the submission of position statements and demonstration descriptions as well as full papers. Position papers and demonstration submissions should not exceed 1000 words, full papers should not contain more than 6000 words. Documents should be be submitted as tarred/zipped archives containing exactly one index.html file and all accompanying files to team-foafws-org@w3.org (or alternate address(danbri+foafws@w3.org>). Papers to be published and/or presented will be selected by in peer review process. * Full paper submissions due: *18th July 2004* * Position papers and demonstration proposals due: *22nd July 2004* * Notification for acceptance: *5th August 2004* * Web-ready versions due: *16th August 2004* * Workshop date: *1st-2nd September 2004* Chairs ------ * Dan Brickley , W3C. * Stefan Decker , DERI. * Libby Miller , ILRT. * R.V.Guha , IBM. Programme Committee ------------------- * Lada Adamic * Tom Baker * Orkut Buyukkokten * Marc Canter * Edd Dumbill * Dieter Fensel * Morten Frederiksen * Nick Gibbins * Jen Golbeck * Jan Hauser * Jim Hendler * Mashide Kanzaki * Paul Martino * Brian McBride * Wolfgang Nejdl * Chris Schmidt * Guus Schreiber * Nova Spivak * Jack Park * Barney Pell * Norman Walsh * Danny Weitzner Location -------- Galway was founded in the 13th century by the Anglo-Norman de Burgos as a medieval settlement on the eastern bank of the River Corrib. It became a walled and fortified city state ruled by fourteen powerful merchant families, later known as the "Tribes of Galway". Today the city is a vibrant, bustling centre of the arts and commerce, though it still retains a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. Galway is also one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. The city, with its medieval streets, waterways, extensive range of shopping facilities, wealth of music sessions and other cultural events, is a place to be treasured. The seaside town of Salthill, a Galway suburb, is a renowned summer resort. Its fine beaches open directly onto spectacular Galway Bay. Galway's numerous annual festivals and celebrations - among them the 'Cúirt' International Festival of Literature, the Galway Arts Festival, the Galway Races and the Oyster Festival - are famous throughout Ireland and beyond. Galwegians can justly claim a quality of life that is surpassed nowhere in the world. Being a university city, Galway is a lively energetic place throughout the year. The National University of Ireland, Galway , situated close to the heart of Galway, enjoys an intimate relationship with the city and during the academic year, 15% of the population of the city are students. A compact, thriving city, Galway caters to youth like few other places can. The University's graduates have played a pivotal role in all areas of the development of Galway, including the arts, industry and commerce. The Digital Enterprise Research Institute has a centre located at NUI Galway and is focused on developing Semantic Web technology. See the local organisers page for further details on accommodation and travel. Sponsoring Possibilities ------------------------ Are you a company or organisation willing to sponsor this event? Sponsoring companies will be given the opportunity to present their software in The demo session and display their logo prominently on the workshop homepage. Please contact John Breslin (john.breslin@deri.ie) for further information.