Social Task Networks: Personal and Collaborative Task Formulation and Management in Social Networking Sites

Personal tasks are managed with a variety of mechanisms from To-Do lists to calendars to emails. Task management remains challenging, since many tasks are interrelated, some may depend on other people’s tasks to be accomplished, and their priority and status changes over time. While many tasks could be automated by services and agents available on the Web, To-Do lists often capture tasks in textual form that combine non-automatable aspects. We have designed a new approach that combines techniques for task representations in hierarchical planning and for sharing in social networking sites. We broaden the notion of assistance so it is not just provided by computers but also by other people.