Waggle Labs: Prototyping Project History

Prototyping Project History

We have participated in the development of many new social technologies, playing a lead role across all phases including brainstorming, design, implementation, and evaluation. The most recent projects below were completed in the context of Waggle Labs. Older projects were completed either independently or in the context of previous positions by Shelly Farnham and Peter Brown as indicated.

Pathable (2007), a tool for social matching at events based on social tagging analytics. Pathable is currently in the alpha phase of development and is wholly owned by Waggle Labs.
Peer Wisdom (2006-2007), an online health community. Shelly consulted with Peer Wisdom to review theory and best practices of web 2.0 social technologies to explore integration points. She assisted in working with designers to architect social system, and then she and Peter worked with development team to rapidly prototype using Ruby on Rails. Peter continues to play a lead role on their development team.
Zillow (2007), a real estate site. Shelly consulted with the analytics and community teams of Zillow to explore potential directions for social features.
RealityAllStarz (2006-2007), where users play the game of life and get points for it, the context of a social network. People challenge each other to accomplish life adventures, post proof of having completed challenges, and then earn points from their friends' votes. RealityAllStarz is wholly owned by Waggle Labs, and is its beta phase of development. Implemented in Ruby on Rails.
SuperOyster (2006), an online application that allowed users to buy and sell positions in a waiting list. Peter worked as director of web development on this project in collaboration with Matt Kowalczyk. His primary role was development of the front-end using Ruby on Rails.
Immedi.at (2004-2005), an RSS tool that allows people to receive updates on any message client whenever specific RSS feeds are updates. Peter completed this project independently, designing the interaction model of the system and implementing using Ruby on Rails.
Headless Hunter (2004-2005), a referral recruiting tool designed to aid companies in soliciting employee networks for highly qualified candidates. Peter played the lead role as founder in designing and implementing Headless Hunter using Java, WebWork, Hibernate and PostgreSQL.
Slam (2004-2005), group communication and media sharing for the smartphone, with associated online web sharing and browsing. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Scott Counts and Jordan Schwartz at Microsoft Research. The system built upon the Swarm project by providing a rich user interface on the smartphone. She worked with Scott and Jordan to design and deploy the system, and study its usage.
Swarm (2004), social coordination through group-based SMS. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Pedram Keyani at Microsoft Research. She worked with Pedram to design the system, deploy to target users and study its usage.
Wallop (2003-2005), sharing media and building conversations in the context of your implicit social network. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Sean Kelly and Will Portnoy at Microsoft Research. Shelly designed the initial user interface and the analytics for bootstrapping a network from communication and photo sharing behavior, developed initial deployment plans, and conducted several studies of target population and user feedback upon deployment.
Point to Point (2003-2004), showing overlapping social networks in work environment based on communication groups. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Will Portnoy at Microsoft Research. She designed the user interface and the analytics, and worked with Will to implement. She then conducted a study exploring the use of social networking information to assist knowledge management tasks in an enterprise environment.
Inner Circle (2004), a sharing and searching centric email client. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Andrzej Turski, Lili Cheng, and Susan Yee at Microsoft Research. Shelly's role was to design the system and work with Andrzej to implement.
Online Lab (2002), a tool for hosting studies and questionnaires online. Shelly completed this project at Microsoft Research. She designed the site, worked with contract developers to implement, and then performed many studies using the site.
MSR Connections (2002), profiles in context of social network in the enterprise, based on communication groups and projects. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Will Portnoy and Andrzej Turski at Microsoft Research. She designed the system, including the user interface, interaction model, and analytics and worked with Will and Andrzej to implement. She then completed several studies assessing ability to approximate social networks from communication behavior, and exploring role of social map in helping people develop connections.
Personal Map (2000-2002), inferring your social network from email behavior. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Will Portnoy at Microsoft Research. She designed the user interface, interaction model, and analytics and worked with Will to implement as a desktop client. She then completed a couple of studies exploring use of interaction behavior to develop network.
Shared Browsing (2000), exploring user interfaces for improving social presence in shared browsing tasks. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Lili Cheng at Microsoft Research. She designed the user interfaces, worked with a developer to implement them, and then conducted a study of their impact on social presence.
HutchWorld (1999-2000), providing social support through virtual environments. Shelly completed this project in collaboration with Melora Zaner Godsey, Lili Cheng, Linda Stone at Microsoft Research. Her primary role was to manage a large scale study of its deployment with cancer patients in outpatient apartments.