2/11/2010

Crowd Computing (not Cloud Computing)

This week, I completed a technical report draft, which was submitted to an IEICE MoMuC workshop , at Yokosuka, on Mar 4th 2010
The panel title is “Real Value of Cloud with Devices” and my document is entitled “Mobile, Cloud, and Crowd Computing”, which was uploaded to my home page.

Here is the highlight.
"Cloud Computing" is a marketing buzzword in some communities with no real user experience. Does cloud computing mean gigantic scale server integration with scale-out technologies? The question is hard to respond for people who haven't experienced benefits from cloud applications without knowing those are from clouds. More insights are needed to understand what it really means.

Don’t stick to server technologies when trying to understand “cloud computing.” We should pay more attention to “cloud devices” also. Cloud devices with personal data integration will be an extremely fertile incubation environment for new and innovative killer applications.
Let me explain the reason. In 1990s, we saw the dawn of personal communication with always-on anytime anywhere connection by phone, e-mail, and web browsing. Many web services emerged. Years 2000-2010 are characterized by social network services. i-phone has become an irreplaceable gadget for Facebook and Twitter in US and Europe. People are now using cloud devices to share (quasi) real-time information with their friends and family. That is a different communication style besides the personal communication in 1990's. Recent five years, cell-phone has become an information hub in our daily life. ``always-on'' mobile infrastructure has brought a community-based popular communication culture that was never seen.
The author is using Apple's MobileMe, Evernote, Google's services, SugarSync
, and DOCOMO's address book backup service. Those applications represent data store and integration as essential functions in communication.
The core data must be not only personal ones but also community ones.

With the recent popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and similar microblogging systems, we must note that it is increasing "social capital." Twiter is used for (1)daily chatter, (2)conversations, (3)sharing information/URLs, and (4)reporting news. Those usage are shared over people by clouds, specifically information source, information seeker, and friends.

Now, the personal data is surely being stored into clouds through information hubs (i.e., cell-phones). All the data is not necessary to carry. Those are stored in the clouds, and invoked over wireless broad band networks when necessary.
The race just began on to aggregate and to integrate the data over people so as to promote the data to social capital. Location, identity, schedule, addresses, and SNS connection of people online with whom we have a shared connection will create interpersonal functions. A system based on the integration may foster relationship building by allowing users to interact other members of their community, and consequently contributes to harnessing collective intelligence.
Let me call it “Crowd Computing.”