ACM/Springer Multimedia Systems Journal



Special Issue on Social Recommendation and Delivery Systems for Video and TV Content



Guest Editors: George Lekakos, Teresa Chambel, Hendrik Knoche



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Interactive Video and TV content has become available in many settings which include the web, mobile devices, and desktop applications, as well as smart TVs. Although the above multimedia developments (e.g., Web-based TV, IPTV, and broadcast TV) have followed parallel or even competing paths, there is a set of underlying common themes that regard the users, as a creators, distributors, and viewers of content. In the past, broadcast developments have been in competition with video streaming approaches, and the TV as device has been in conflict with the PC. Nevertheless, the convergence of network and rendering platforms has made such distinctions somewhat superficial. In particular, there are significant research issues that regard the social and the personal preferences of the user. Thus, the recommendation and delivery of multimedia content requires attention to significant research issues, such as semantics, pragmatics, and user preferences. The main goals of this special issue is to assess current approaches, systems, and applications, to evaluate how they treat the main issues of recommending and delivering video and TV content, as well as to propose novel designs for future multimedia systems.



Besides the established hierarchical content delivery (e.g., broadcast), there is growing interest in multimedia systems that support video delivery over an IP-network, which has empowered user terminals to act as nodes in content recommendation and delivery. Since video players and TV devices have become a node in a network, the delivery of content flows through a rather complex ecosystem that consists of diverse networks (e.g., wired, wireless, mobile, fixed, ad-hoc), alternative devices (TV, mobile, PC, Web), and varying user preferences. As a matter of fact, video and TV researchers have become aware that the viewer is not the end in the video delivery chain. In contrast, the viewer has been regarded as just another node in the production-distribution-consumption value chain of multimedia content. That is, a node that can play the role of recommendation and delivery of video and TV content. In this framework, there are several emerging research issues that regard social and user-generated multimedia content, in addition to the established linear and on-demand offerings. For example, users exchange ratings and comments about video and TV content, they are always connected with many devices and through many networks.



In this technological ecosystem, the enhancement of content semantics with pragmatics of actual use is now becoming feasible due to multimedia systems that facilitate the uninterrupted flow of both content and user activity between user terminals and content providers. In traditional TV distribution, one measure of success, besides actual program liking, has been how much a TV show has been talked about between viewers. Schedule managers at TV channels have to predict and to measure with approximate and intrusive techniques (e.g., panels, interviews, questionnaires) the impact of each program on viewers, in order to make informed decisions about time-slots, reruns, and media content acquisition. Networked television enhances this established practice by making more efficient this particular role (measuring what has talk value) of the TV channel. On the other hand, online video distributors have been enabled to set-up dynamic push content in accordance to the user activity generated around their multi-channel content offerings. Overall, networked television has leveraged the established viewer practices, such as recording, browsing (e.g., pause, repeat, skip), sharing with others, and talking about content to become significant determinants in the value chain of content delivery on any TV network.



This special issue is focused on recent developments in Web-based video and TV content. It aims to provide directions for further research in the emerging areas of social recommendation and delivery of TV and video content. The target audience concerns researchers in the many areas of multimedia and TV systems, as well as practitioners. This special issue will accept original research papers that report the latest results and advances in the field of social recommendation and delivery of interactive video and TV content. The papers will be peer reviewed and will be selected on the basis of their quality and relevance to the theme of this special issue.







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Topics

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Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

- Automatic content annotation

- Content-based and user-based recommendation

- Micro-bloging and video

- Ubiquitous and mobile devices

- Broadcast, Web, and converged delivery

- Personalization, filtering, search, adaptation

- Group recommendation

- Intelligent user interfaces

- Crowd-sourcing on Web video

- Semantics and pragmatics

- Distributed services

- Architectures and platforms

- Applications in entertainment, e-learning, e-commerce





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Important Dates

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Full manuscript due: Feb. 15, 2012

Notification of the first review process: May 1, 2012 Final acceptance notification: July 15, 2012 Final manuscript due: Sept. 15, 2012 Publication date: Autumn 2012 (Tentative)



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Paper Submission

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Submitting authors should follow the Author Guidelines available from http://www.editorialmanager.com/mmsj/ and submit their manuscripts through the journal's Editorial Management System at the above URL (please select

SI: EuroiTV 2011, when submitting the paper).

In addition to topical submissions, selected highly ranked papers in the field of interactive video and TV from EuroITV 2011 (The 9th European Conference on Interactive Video and TV, http://www.euroitv2011.org/) can be extended for this special issue. The extended versions must have at least 30% difference from their original papers and will go through the standard peer review.



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Guest Editors

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George Lekakos, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

(glekakos@aueb.gr)

Teresa Chambel, University of Lisbon, Portugal, (tc@di.fc.ul.pt)

Hendrik Knoche, EPFL, Switzerland, (hendrik.knoche@epfl.ch)