Middleware for anytime, anywhere social networks

The importance of social and computing disciplines for the design of social-networking services that support human social interactions, is discussed. Technology advances in wireless networks and the increasing diffusion of portable devices provide an opportunity to improve social-networking services. The formation of ad hoc networks enables users to share their views with others. These services can be shifted from virtual to physical social spaces. Social computing needs several support mechanisms and tools, including location and proximity systems, expressive representation models of physical place and user characteristics, and effective social-matching algorithms. It also requires shared and interoperable vocabularies for modeling location and entity characteristics.