Chapter 3: Mobile Personal Content Uncovered 61 3.3.4 Favourites Not all personal content is equally valued. Some songs are listened to more than others, and some photos are viewed more often. There are favourites among the piles of personal content. An important tool related to favourites is rating. Not only should one be able to specifi cally mark the pieces of content that are special, but means for rating should also be provided. Ratings can be manual or automatic. Automatic rating can be based on several technologies, depending on the content type, the context of use, etc. In rating, two aspects can be identifi ed. One may provide personal ratings or the ratings may be public, for instances, provided by a community. Sharing ratings adds to the social aspects of personal content. 3.3.5 Sharing and Communities Even though the term “personal” implies an intimate relationship between a content object and the user, it is a common practice to share content regardless of its type. There are several levels of sharing, ranging from sending a photo to a close friend to publishing a moblog on the Web. As the mobile phones slowly turn into mobile multimedia computers, introducing increasingly advanced content creation capa- bilities while retaining the “always-connected” nature, the role of sharing is boosted even further. There are several motives for sharing. In many cases, it is just sharing a personal experience with loved ones, while sometimes it is a question of seeking for fame (sharing a saved game, for instance). Sometimes sharing may be a matter of competition, such as when sharing a heart rate log in a Web community for others to evaluate. Nevertheless, many personal content objects continue their lives beyond their creator’s hard drive. Sharing is tightly related to the social nature of personal content. As witnessed in section 7.3, many online communities are built around sharing content in different forms. Such communities routinely allow uploading one’s own content and linking it with other people and content objects, as well as downloading, commenting, and rating other users’ content. 3.3.6 Relations and Associations It is uncommon for a piece of personal content to appear in a void, without relating to any other piece of personal content. Many photos are related to other photos, taken on the same occasion; most songs