Mobile Social Networking and Computing: A Multidisciplinary Integrated Perspective

Recent advancements in mobile device technologies are revolutionizing how we socialize, interact, and connect. By connecting the virtual community with the local environment, mobile social networks (MSNs) create the opportunity for a multitude of new personalized services for mobile users. Along with that comes the need for new paradigms, mechanisms, and techniques with the capacity to autonomously manage their functioning and evolution. Currently, most books about mobile networks focus mainly on the technical point of view. Mobile Social Networking and Computing: A Multidisciplinary Integrated Perspective not only addresses the theoretical aspects of MSN and computing, but also introduces and categorizes existing applications. It supplies a multidisciplinary perspective that considers the technology, economics, social sciences, and psychology behind MSNs. In addition to fundamental theory, the book investigates the practical issues in MSN, including characteristics, inner structural relationship, incentive mechanisms, resource allocating, information diffusion, search, ranking, privacy, trust, and reputation. Introducing recently developed technologies, modes, and models, the book provides two distinct (but related) viewpoints about MSN applications: socially inspired networking technology and networking technology that uses recent advancements to enhance quality of life. The text illustrates the interaction between the macrolevel structure and the local rational behaviors (microlevel) in MSN. It summarizes currently available MSN development platforms, including Android and iOS, and introduces and categorizes existing applications related to MSN and computing. Both location-based service (LBS) and mobile social networks in proximity (MSNPs) are presented in a comprehensive manner. Highlighting key research opportunities, this much-needed reference outlines incentive mechanisms inspired by classical economics, behavioral economics, and social psychology, and, perhaps for the first time, it presents a summary of the economic and business models of MSNs.