Online aggregation is a new trend in today’s world. It is developed from an IT concept to a much broader idea that applies to a variety of areas such as information, human capital, social power, and so on. The power of online aggregation has not only changed the way of business, but also affected the process of social development. The current study identified three models of online aggregation and provided examples of each. Some future implications and downsides of online aggregation are also discussed in this paper. / text

Social networking has encouraged users to find new ways to create, post, search, collaborate and share information of various forms. Unfortunately there is a lot of data in social networks that is not well-managed, which makes the experience within these networks less than optimal. Therefore people generally need more and more time as well as advanced tools that are used for seeking relevant information. A new search paradigm is emerging, where the user perspective is completely reversed: from finding to being found. The aim of present thesis research is to evaluate two approaches of identifying content of interest: user-initiated and system-initiated. The most suitable approaches will be implemented. Various recommendation systems for system-initiated content recommendations will also be investigated, and the best suited ones implemented. The analysis that was performed demonstrated that the users have used all of the implemented approaches and have provided positive and negative comments for all of them, which reinforces the belief that the methods for the implementation were selected correctly. The results of the user testing of the methods were evaluated based on the amount of time it took the users to find the desirable content and on the correspondence of the result compared to the user expectations.

The Internet has evolved into a medium centered around content: people watch videos on YouTube, share their pictures via Flickr, and use Facebook to keep in touch with their friends. Yet, the only globally deployed service to discover content - i.e., Domain Name System (DNS) - does not discover content at all; it merely translates domain names into locations. The lack of persistent naming, in particular, makes content discovery, instead of domain discovery, challenging. Content Distribution Networks (CDNs), which augment DNSs with location-awareness, also suffer from the same problem of lack of persistent content names. Recently, several infrastructure- level solutions to this problem have emerged, but their fundamental limitation is that they fail to preserve the autonomy of network participants. Specifically, the storage requirements for resolution within each participant may not be proportional to their capacity. Furthermore, these solutions cannot be incrementally deployed. To the best of our knowledge, content discovery services based on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are the only ones that support persistent content names. These services also come with the built-in advantage of scalability and deployability. However, P2P networks have been deployed in the real-world only recently, and their real-world characteristics are not well understood. It is important to understand these real-world characteristics in order to improve the performance and propose new designs by identifying the weaknesses of existing designs. In this dissertation, we first propose a novel, lightweight technique for capturing P2P traffic. Using our captured data, we characterize several aspects of P2P networks and draw conclusions about their weaknesses. Next, we create a botnet to demonstrate the lethality of the weaknesses of P2P networks. Finally, we address the weaknesses of P2P systems to design a P2P-based content discovery service, which resolves the drawbacks of existing content discovery systems and can operate at Internet-scale. This dissertation includes both previously published/unpublished and co-authored material.

Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is a way of delivering television over the Internet, which enables two-way communication between an operator and its users. By using IPTV, users have freedom to choose what content they want to consume and when they want to consume it. For example, users are able to watch TV shows after they have been aired on TV, and they can access content that is not part of any linear TV broadcasts, e.g. movies that are available to rent. This means that, by using IPTV, users can get access to more video content than is possible with the traditional TV distribution formats. However, having more options also means that deciding what to watch becomes more difficult, and it is important that IPTV providers facilitate the process of finding interesting content so that the users find value in using their services. In this thesis, the author investigated how a user’s online social network can be used as a basis for facilitating the discovery of interesting movies in an IPTV environment. The study consisted of two parts, a theoretical and a practical. In the theoretical part, a literature study was carried out in order to obtain knowledge about different recommender system strategies. In addition to the literature study, a number of online social network platforms were identified and empirically studied in order to gain knowledge about what data is possible to gather from them, and how the data can be gathered. In the practical part, a prototype content discovery system, which made use of the gathered data, was designed and built. This was done in order to uncover difficulties that exist with implementing such a system. The study shows that, while it is is possible to gather data from different online social networks, not all of them offer data in a form that is easy to make use of in a content discovery system. Out of the investigated online social networks, Facebook was found to offer data that is the easiest to gather and make use of. The biggest obstacle, from a technical point of view, was found to be the matching of movie titles gathered from the online social network with the movie titles in the database of the IPTV service provider; one reason for this is that movies can have titles in different languages. / Internet Protocol television (IPTV) är ett sätt att leverera tv via Internet, vilket möjliggör tvåvägskommunikation mellan en operatör och dess användare. Genom att använda IPTV har användare friheten att välja vilket innehåll de vill konsumera och när de vill konsumera det. Användare har t.ex. möjlighet att titta på tv program efter att de har sänts på tv, och de kan komma åt innehåll som inte är en del av någon linjär tv-sändning, t.ex. filmer som är tillgängliga att hyra. Detta betyder att användare, genom att använda IPTV, kan få tillgång till mer videoinnhåll än vad som är möjligt med traditionella tv-distributionsformat. Att ha fler valmöjligheter innebär dock även att det blir svårare att bestämma sig för vad man ska titta på, och det är viktigt att IPTV-leverantörer underlättar processen att hitta intressant innehåll så att användarna finner värde i att använda deras tjänster. I detta exjobb undersökte författaren hur en användares sociala nätverk på Internet kan användas som grund för att underlätta upptäckandet av intressanta filmer i en IPTV miljö. Undersökningen bestod av två delar, en teoretisk och en praktisk. I den teoretiska delen genomfördes en litteraturstudie för att få kunskap om olika rekommendationssystemsstrategier. Utöver litteraturstudien identifierades ett antal sociala nätverk på Internet som studerades empiriskt för att få kunskap om vilken data som är möjlig att hämta in från dem och hur datan kan inhämtas. I den praktiska delen utformades och byggdes en prototyp av ett s.k. content discovery system (“system för att upptäcka innehåll”), som använde sig av den insamlade datan. Detta gjordes för att exponera svårigheter som finns med att implementera ett sådant system. Studien visar att, även om det är möjligt att samla in data från olika sociala nätverk på Internet så erbjuder inte alla data i en form som är lätt att använda i ett content discovery system. Av de undersökta sociala nätverkstjänsterna visade det sig att Facebook erbjuder data som är lättast att samla in och använda. Det största hindret, ur ett tekniskt perspektiv, visade sig vara matchningen av filmtitlar som inhämtats från den sociala nätverkstjänsten med filmtitlarna i IPTV-leverantörens databas; en anledning till detta är att filmer kan ha titlar på olika språk.

The media landscape is changing and Internet-based streaming services for children are becoming increasingly popular. The concept of online streaming extends freedom and control over content selection but discovering new content is often experienced as troublesome. The objective of this thesis is to identify parameters to make it easier for users of streaming services for children to discover and watch unfamiliar programs. Guidelines are formed based on literature studies, interviews, observations, a survey, a benchmark, data analysis with Adobe Analytics, a workshop and finally user tests with prototypes. These guidelines conclude that content should be categorized, dynamicized, highlighted and socially engaging. Categorization based on age is primarily important but interests and genres can also be used to make children more interested in a title. Content should be dynamic, customizable and personal to each user to give more accurate recommendations based on age and interests. Making one alternative more visually prominent will make this alternative more interesting especially for younger children and social features with information about other users opinions can motivate a decision to discover new content among older children.

This study investigates the changing television landscape and consumption habits and the effects on the Swedish public service television(SVT). Recent shifts have amplified the ongoing decline of linear television and were marked by increasing migration of viewers to online video consumption and global streaming services. These new competitors escalate the challenges facing national broadcasters and emphasize the role of having a strong independent public service television that can remain relevant to all its audiences. SVT has been a pioneer in shifting to online and launched its video streaming service SVT Play in 2006. But the service is unable to recuperate the viewership bleeding from SVT linear channels, and reaching younger audiences has never been more challenging. The study presents a literature review and background referring to recent general trends in the television market, to put shifts and disruptions in the Swedish market in a larger context. We also present a thorough background on the Swedish television market focusing on the position of SVT and SVT Play. We discussed dynamics and drivers of recent structural and consumption shifts through in-depth interviews with key personnel from SVT as well as with other experts from different areas within the media and telecom industry. We seek to answer what future challenges and opportunities are for SVT Play and how to deal with those challenges and opportunities. The data collected were analyzed and reported in this study. The main findings indicate a new era ahead of public service heralded by the unprecedented decline of SVT broadcast and the increased consumption divergence in 2019. The study found that SVT Play has a central future role of public service television and should be further empowered to remain agile and relevant, through diverse, differentiated, and personalized offerings, but also through constant engagement with audiences and continuous learning of what they value and demand in a constantly changing media landscape. / Denna studie undersöker det föränderliga TV-landskapet och de nya konsumtionsvanornas effekter på svensk public service- TV (SVT). Nyligen har skiftningar intensifierat den pågående minskningen av linjär-TV vilket märkts i den ökande migrationen av TV-tittare till online video-konsumtion och globala streamingtjänster. Dessa nya konkurrenter trappar upp utmaningarna som nationella programföretag ställts inför och betonar vikten av att ha stark och oberoende public service-TV som kan förbli relevant för samtliga målgrupper. SVT har varit pionjärer i övergången till online och lanserade sin streamingtjänst för video, SVT Play, redan 2006. Men tjänsten är oförmögen att hämta upp de förlorade tittarsiffrorna från SVTs linjära TV-kanaler. Samtidigt så har det aldrig tidigare varit svårare att nå de unga målgrupperna. Denna studie presenterar en litteraturgenomgång och bakgrund med referenser till de senaste allmänna trenderna TV-marknad, för att ställa den svenska marknadens förändringar och störningar i ett större sammanhang. Vi presenterar även en grundlig bakgrund av den svensk TV-marknaden med fokus på SVTs och SVT Plays positioner i denna. Vi har resonerat kring dynamiken och drivkrafterna bakom de senaste strukturella förändringarna och förändringarna i konsumtion, genom djupgående intervjuer med nyckelpersoner från SVT samt andra experter inom olika områden av media- och Telecom-industrin. Vi söker svaret till vilka de framtida utmaningarna och möjligheterna för SVT Play är, samt hur man bör handskas med dessa utmaningar och möjligheter. Den insamlade datan har analyserats och rapporteras i denna studie. De huvudsakliga upptäckterna indikerar en ny era för public service, påbörjad av de historiska minskningarna av SVTs sändningar samt den ökande konsumtionsdivergensen under 2019. Studien har funnit att SVT Play besitter en central framtida roll för public service-TV och bör fortsatt vara stärkt i uppgiften att förbli rörlig och relevant, genom varierade, differentierade och personanpassade erbjudanden, men även genom ett konstant engagemang med sin publik och ett kontinuerligt lärande över vad de värderar och önskar i ett ständigt skiftande medielandskap.