The things we do together spawn conversations; gathering with our friends and families to watch programs, concerts, and events, we share the experience through backchannel conversations, social asides and mutual displays of agreement and disagreement. How do these sharing of experiences in turn shape how we understand the actual event?  In this talk, I will present three real-world applications designed to facilitate synchronous conversations while sharing media.  First, I will examine how people use status updates, like on Twitter, while they watch political events on TV.  Second, I will discuss a system for synchronized video sharing over Instant Messenger called Zync.  In particular, I will demonstrate methods for segmentation, summarization and categorization of video media after the sharing event has already passed.  Finally I will describe Graffiti Dance—a participatory installation presented at the Berkeley Art Museum which constructs a real-time performance between online media, the audience, and modern dance.  Throughout the talk, I will discuss how these examples extend online infrastructures to build highly connected experiences.

David Ayman Shamma is a research scientist in the Microeconomics and Social Systems group at Yahoo! Research. His research interests include digital expression, creativity frameworks, interaction design and media sharing as well as community-centric multimedia. His research focuses on understanding creativity and conversation as well as building new creative models and sharing tools.  Additionally, Ayman creates media art installations which have been reviewed by The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and Chicago Magazine and exhibited internationally, including the Berkeley Art Museum (BAMPFA), Second City Chicago, SIGGRAPH ETECH, Chicago Improv Festival, Wired NextFest and NextMusic.

Ayman holds a B.S./M.S. from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition at The University of West Florida and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University. He has taught at the Medill School of Journalism as well as in several Computer Science and Studio Art departments. Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he was a visiting research scientist for the Center for Mars Exploration at NASA Ames Research Center.