=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1716/WSICC_2016_paper_8
|storemode=property
|title=Interactive Content Contribution
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1716/WSICC_2016_paper_8.pdf
|volume=Vol-1716
|authors=Rik Bauwens
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/tvx/Bauwens16
}}
==Interactive Content Contribution==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1716/WSICC_2016_paper_8.pdf
Interactive Content Contribution
Rik Bauwens
Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep (VRT)
Auguste Reyerslaan 52, 1043 Brussel, Belgium
rik.bauwens@vrt.be
ABSTRACT makes it the most mature of the three. Especially the field trial
In this paper a collection of prototype applications developed at Dranouter Festival (during the summer of 2015) yielded
by VRT –as part of the ICoSOLE project– are described: valuable insights.
Moments, Trademark and the Wall. Together, they form the
Based on these learnings, we drew three main conclusions,
The Wall of Moments. The aim is to collect valuable user-
which are outlined below.
generated content, in order to create a near-to live immersive
experience for event visitors as well as people who can’t at- • People want instant feedback on their contributed content.
tend an event. They want to know how people value their photo or video
and they want control over what happens with it later on.
Author Keywords
ICoSOLE; VRT; interactive content contribution; the wall of • Contributing content should be effortlessly: conditions at
moments; ugc an event (e.g. a festival) are not optimal, so there’s no room
for fiddling around complex steps to share content; ideally,
ACM Classification Keywords it should only be one tap away.
D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques: User interfaces • Part of the test users are very able to contribute interesting,
well-thought-out, creative content, but the majority needs
INTRODUCTION more steering: they need to have an idea of which content
Within the ICoSOLE project [5], different (cost-effective) you’re looking for.
ways of capturing a spatially outspread event are considered.
A core research challenge is synchronizing this content in
time and space, and this is achieved by using various kinds
of metadata.
A second challenge of the ICoSOLE project consists of us-
ing this content to create an immersive experience for atten-
dees and people who can’t attend the event. These prototypes
are a practical implementation of this goal, with a focus on
user-generated content. Previous field tests during this project
proved that content alone is not enough. Content should be
part of a bigger picture, it should tell a story. Therefor, par-
ticipation from and interaction with content contributors is an
absolute must, and event producers need the tools to achieve Figure 1. (1) Overview of captured content with according feedback; (2)
just that. Push notifications; (3) WhatsApp-like messaging
THE WALL OF MOMENTS We took these conclusions and overhauled the prototype in
The Wall of Moments consists of three main prototypes: Mo- time for the European Open Days event in the autumn of
ments, Trademark and the Wall. 2015. Now, we’re also giving users the results of the video
analysis and and feedback based on these results. People are
Moments informed when their content is used on the Wall and can opt
Moments is a mobile app which event participants can use to out of showing it publicly anywhere.
contribute content (photos or videos) to the production crew. Leading up to the latest event (Science Night), we addressed
The Moments app was the first prototype of the Wall of Mo- the second and third conclusion. We added push notifications,
ments and has been iterated several of times already, which to be able to contact test users directly to cover opportuni-
ties during an event using UGC. Additionally, we added a
WhatsApp-like [6] messaging functionality. This way, the
production crew can, for instance, contact an end-user for
more information about his/her contribution, request a better
quality version and issue polls among users.
Lastly, we added a (Facebook-like) live feed of the event to
the app to catch up on what’s going on on different spots of
4th International Workshop on Interactive Content Consumption at TVX’16, June 22,
2016, Chicago, IL, USA the event site.
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s)
Trademark TECHNOLOGIES
To support the new features of the Moments app in the back- We developed the Wall of Moments prototypes as web ap-
end, a new app for the production crew was developed as well. plications to support as much (mobile) devices as possible,
using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3. Moments and Trade-
Firstly, incoming content needs to be managed in a smart way.
mark are also wrapped in a native container using Apache
During busy periods, a lot of content is contributed simulta- Cordova [3], to enable mobile-specific features and better in-
neously, and it is essential to find the most interesting content tegration. For playback of professional content, a DASH-
as fast as possible. We deliberately choose not to do the filter- enabled video player by consortium member Bitmovin (Bit-
ing of content completely automatically. An algorithm can’t dash [2]) has been integrated. To allow for easy scalability for
interpret content like humans do (yet), and we can’t afford field trials at large events, we opted to use as many backend
to display inappropriate content anywhere. What we can do, services that scale out-of-the-box as possible. Almost every
however, is using algorithms to sort content in an ingenious component has been built using scalable cloud components,
way and suggest the best photo or video first. Thus, great
from the main database (Firebase [4]) to data storage (Ama-
content is processed as fast as possible while still leaving the
zon S3 [1]).
final call to the director.
DEMO CONTENT
The demo uses a selection of content originating from Aus-
trian Science Night, a field test organised in Austria on April
22nd 2016. To illustrate the liveliness when used near-to-live,
the prototypes will be showcased live as well.
CONCLUSION AND FURTHER RESEARCH
The Wall of Moments is a range of prototypes in which use
cases defined in the ICoSOLE project are implemented. Ex-
Figure 2. (1) Intelligent assessment of content; (2) Map of active users
periments during the summer of 2016 shall provide further
insights into improvements of applications for end users in
Secondly, interactivity plays a big role in this story. Therefor, terms of usability, design and features. We intend to enhance
we ambition a closer contact between the contributors and these prototypes further during these field trials by adding
the production crew. On top of the WhatsApp-based messag- even more data sources. For example, we consider attaching
ing tool, which is also built into Trademark, it’s possible to proximity sensors to the screens displaying the Wall, to per-
contact a (sub)group of the Moments’ users using push noti- sonalize what’s shown (based on closeby users). This could
fications. A crew member can open up a map of the event strengthen event engagement even more, and yield a richer
location and select a certain area to get an overview of the experience both for event visitors and people following at
users who are currently there. Subsequently, he can request a home.
photo/video, or request to participate in a poll. Active users
are marked in a different color as well. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lastly, contributed content (photo/video/poll) can be posted This work is part of the ICoSOLE project, funded by the Eu-
directly on the event’s social media, or can be sent to the Wall. ropean Commission through the 7th Framework Programme
(FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 610370.
The Wall REFERENCES
The Wall is a mosaic representation of content, and is dis- 1. Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an online file
played on big screens placed at the event. This mosaic –or storage web service offered by Amazon Web Services.
matrix– is a constantly refreshing feed of the latest and most https://aws.amazon.com/s3.
interesting content.
2. Bitdash (by Bitmovin) is a suite of highly optimized
MPEG-DASH clients. https://bitmovin.com/player.
3. Apache Sereng (formerly PhoneGap) is a popular mobile
application development framework originally created by
Nitobi. https://cordova.apache.org.
4. Firebase is a cloud services provider and backend as a
service. https://firebase.com.
5. Immersive Coverage of Spatially Outspread Live Events
project website. http://icosole.eu.
6. WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform,
encrypted, instant messaging client for smartphones.
Figure 3. The Wall https://whatsapp.com.