Mobile social networks: state-of-the-art and a new vision

Social networks have attracted much attention and are gaining increasing momentum in communities, academia and industries. The mobilization of social networks, thus mobile social networks (MSNs), has equally been widely used, driven by the rapid advancement of both wireless network technologies and mobile devices. In light of the many works on MSNs focusing on its various different aspects, this paper aims to provide an overall view of this young and exciting field by summarizing its key research activities/categories and analyzing their interrelationships. Furthermore, the paper goes one step further by presenting a new vision of MSNs, which brings its other equally important arm, that is, mobile communication networks, into the horizon of MSN research. This new vision advocates the seamless integration of both arms, each located at different layers, that is, social networks at the application layer and mobile wireless networks at the network and communication layers. This integration calls for a cross-layer information exchange of the two layers for the benefit of the MSN as a whole. The methodologies that shall be adopted by this new vision of MSN and the upcoming research challenges faced by this new field are discussed. It is hoped that this paper can serve as a seed to spark wider and deeper discussions and research activities on this new field of MSNs, where social computing activities and mobile wireless network researches embrace each other to create an era where all stakeholders in the MSN supply chain and in particular end-users benefit. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.