Finding Information through Integrated Ad-Hoc Socializing in the Virtual and Physical World

Despite the services of sophisticated search engines, there are interesting information sources which are useful but largely inaccessible to current web users. These sources are often ad-hoc, location-specific and only useful for users over short periods of time, or relate to tacit knowledge of users or crowds. The solution presented in this paper introduces an integrated concept of "location" and "presence" across the physical and virtual worlds enabling ad-hoc socializing of users looking for similar information. While the definition of presence in the physical world is straightforward their definitions in the virtual world are neither obvious nor trivial. We provide an integrated spatial model spanning both worlds which enables us to define presence of users in a unified way. This integrated model allows us to enable ad-hoc socializing of users browsing the Web with users in the physical world specific to their joint information needs and allows us to unlock the untapped information sources mentioned above. We describe our proof-of-concept implementation and provide an empirical analysis based on real-world experiments.