Flux of MEME wins a research grant at Working Capital Bologna

It was the last of a sequence: the project was briefed, submitted for an elevator pitch, then checked in a couple of meetings, refined, presented again, and at the end it won. The project will be funded by Telecom Italia @workingcapital and was presented during the last Working Capital event in Bologna, June 9th 2010.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR55dY8O1wU]

Goal of this project is to create a semantic web application capable of predicting the future through the analysis and clustering of concepts.

Memes flow through the social networks and can be paired with their geo-reference information to understand how they move in physical space. Terms used in a single meme describe its semantic domain and images, when present, can enrich their interpretation.

Now the research begins. Part of the semantic engine for term extraction and expansion is already working. From my personal point of view I think that two outcomes will be really important:

• applying results on mobile devices - contexts still have to be defined, but mobile networks and entertainment is an immediate transfer for this project;
• data visualization - huge amounts of data are useless if not digested and visualized in a simple and attractive way; at the moment I am exploring Processing, as it appears a good desktop environment, and this is the reason why I cited blprnt.com in my presentation.

Any suggestion and comment greatly appreciated.