Small Talk: A Social App for Meaningful Conversations

Have you ever been at a cocktail party forced to make small talk with someone you just met? Perhaps you're at a networking event scraping the barrel for intelligent and witty things to say? We've all been in this situation before, but the rapid rise of social media in the last decade means that we are increasingly conditioned to having online conversations and communicating via texts, videos and images. In this context, how can we engage in rich, in-depth conversations in real life with the help of technology?

The Small Talk project aims to break the ice and overcome social awkwardness in the age of digital networking. Its purpose is to facilitate meaningful face-to-face conversations through topic suggestions and aggregation of online news content. Scenarios where this app can be used are endless and can include: first dates, networking events, family gatherings, first day of term and so on.

Ideally, users will need to complete a profile quiz to determine their interests and personality. They will then select their preferred social situation and the target audience (who they will converse with), which is linked to a database of questions. This database will initially be populated with static "core" content such as questions about hobbies, family background, travel and work, but will also be constantly updated from online news sources (such as news.com.au) and scholarly sources (such as Harvard Business Review, nature.com).

The project group in collaboration with myself will develop a user-friendly interface together that does not look conspicuous when accessed in public, as well as a way to aggregate news content and display it dynamically. The data I have includes the core questions for the static database.

Though anonymous, this app will also need to capture data on which questions are the most used/popular in order and map this to demographic data, to produce enough information to compile a report titled "Socialising in a Digital Era".

Client

Contact Person: Alissa Warne
Telephone: 0415889484
Email: [email protected]
Preferred method of contact: Phone/email
Location: Perth

Client Unavailability

None

IP Exploitation Model

The client wishes to deal with IP embodied in the project and wishes to have a right of the project proposer and student group to use and modify project outputs, but not to distribute.