Taking Social Networks to the Next Level

The success of social networking sites has led people to require the use of multiple accounts on different platforms which effectively increases the risks in managing them. Following and finding information about friends and family has become an issue too. Guided by these observations and by careful research of existing adaptive web technologies, the authors' team worked on the development of SNAP - an adaptive social network integrator which aimed to amalgamate various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr) in one adaptive environment, which unobtrusively sorts the users' feed according to his/her preference. To achieve data transfer and authorisation, SNAP uses the newest version of the OAuth protocol. Adaptivity was achieved through statistical filtering. The initial field tests show that the system works, however there is definitely room for improvement in terms of Social Network Integration, and testers generally expressed an interest in the idea of using an adaptive social integrator such as SNAP. On top of this, the authors will be suggesting a number of improvements which will change the way society uses social networks forever.