Technology

Go-myLife is a mobile social networking program built around the needs of the elderly. The project does not attempt to set up a new stand-alone social network, but rather one that is fully integrated with mainstream online social networks bringing existing communities together and based on mobility, location and context awareness.

Four guiding principles for development

These principles are directly derived from the Go-myLife project objectives:

1. Inclusiveness: Go-myLife is not only for older people. Go-myLife makes it easier for older people to participate in mainstream activities and feel a part of the whole of society.
    
2. Focus on social interactions: although many assistive technologies can be incorporated into Go-myLife, we give higher priority to ones facilitating social interactions.
    
3. Rapid rate of change and progress of technologies: Go-myLife is developed in a way that reflects future trends and enables the incorporation of future technologies.
    
4. User Involvement: by adopting a “user involvement” approach, Go-myLife actively seeks the participation of older people, via a mix of methods.

The architecture

The architecture consists of a core social networking platform connected to disparate social networking sites through middleware that essentially addresses personalization, security and integration-related requirements, with an easy and accessible interface.

Other than controlling user access and authentication, the core platform will also manage privacy, trust and reputation through identity management and reputation systems. This will ensure that during any group interaction, users are aware of the information being shared and have aids available to control it. To assure interoperability and ubiquity, Go-myLife will provide a web-based solution.

The Go-myLife platform architecture is composed of the following components:

- Web client application: At the user interface level, a web application, that includes a Mobile web form as well as a Desktop web, was developed using Google Web Toolkit. The Web client application provides users with a web based access to the system to interact with their peers, share contents, connect to other social networks and be active members in the communities.

- Community Admin Interface: a web interface that provides to administrators web-based access to capabilities for the administrators of the communities that include:

- Manage Communities

- Manage News

- Manage Photos

- Manage Events

- Manage Location

- Go-myLife Social Engine: The Go-myLife Social Engine is the core of the Go-myLife platform and is responsible for the management of the content, its relationships and privacy. It is based on the open source LibreGeoSocial framework.

- User Interface API: an interface to manage the content stored in the Go-myLife Social Engine. This interface is called from the UI level to create the different functionalities offered in the client application.

- External Social Networks API: an interface to connect to existing online social networks and allow a bidirectional communication between the platforms. In the scope of Go-myLife project, different connectors will be developed for the interaction with each of these networks. All of them follow a schema to guarantee its integration without unnecessary changes at the user interface.

- Services Integration API: an interface to integrate content from external information sources. This module allows an easy integration system for sources of information; it qualifies the contents and provides to clients a good abstraction model.

- Communities Integration API: an interface for the construction of the communities and the management of their content.

- Data Analysis API: an interface to analysis the data, obtain anonymously statistics and detect tendencies to be offered through a Report Dashboard for 3rd parties.

- Database: is the database software used to store all the Go-myLife related data.