Credits and copyright:
Arlon Stok
Oskari Oranen

Thanks to:
Laura Huhtela-Bremer

The user, in a social media context, tries to give a good representation of his/her true self, or a better version of it, the person he/she would like to be or simply look like.
From this point of view, there's no doubt that the social media platform has to act as a mirror of the user itself, replicating what needs to be replicated, while giving control to the user when addressing his/her personal features.

We need to consider and take care of the user's real life patterns, especially in case of a mobile platform.
As online time increases, so do the requirements in variety, and vice versa.

Every one of us constantly communicates with the outer world in real life; through gestures, tone of voice, instinctive and involuntary responses to the environment.
This creates an "aura" around us, perceived by the others.
It can be partially replicated in a social network setting, where the various features that compose one's emotions, moods and so on, can be represented through the use of colour, shape, sign.. or more advanced morphing techniques.

There are whole new categories of contacts that need to be considered in social networking!
Let's think abour the very few closest friends of ours, or our family .
They exist in real life, they're actually a fundamental part of it. Why are we so often neglecting their importance when acting as our virtual selves, just surrounding ourselves with people we might have met only once or twice?

There's not just the personal descriptive side to it.
In the very varied lives we lead, we surely put a lot of passion in what we do, which is also what helps us connecting with the others and knowing new people. Interests can be extremely varied, therefore very personal.
They are the true key to get to create and mantain relations in our virtual lives, one of the most effective ways to get others to know us.

Using these basic concepts, we introduced a new environment for communication tools where PIM (personal information management) and social networking, together with enhanced emotion and personality tools are used to create a new interface-thinking, not only for young adults and teenagers, but simply universal in its humanity.


Credits and copyright: Arlon Stok Oskari Oranen Thanks to: Laura Huhtela-Bremer			Trying to cover the essential human needs in Social Media is our aim, universal metaphores our weapon. Dealing with the necessity to consider a whole new visual language in order to cover real-life patterns, while keeping it digital. (what follows is just scratching the surface) Update: presented in february 2008, many social networks such as Facebook have already started moving in the direction we predicted. Just not there, yet.