Petimo: Sharing experiences through physically extended social networking

Abstract

This paper presents an experience-sharing platform, Petimo, which consists of two modules, Petimo-World and Petimo-Robot. This system extends the traditional social networking concept into the physical world by incorporating a child friendly soft robotic toy for easy and safe social experience. It adds a new physical dimension to social computing and provides extra safety in making friends by physically touching each other's robots. Petimo system can be connected to any social network and it provides safety and security for children. Petimo-World demonstrates many basic features with traditional online social networks in order to share personal experiences. Petimo-World stands out from all other virtual worlds with its interesting and sophisticated interactions such as the visualization of friends' relationships through spatial distribution in the 3D space to clearly understand the closeness of the friendship, personalized avatars and sending of special gifts/emoticons. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.