An Agent-Based Platform for Ad-Hoc Social Networking

Social network services such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter support more or less permanent social relationships, where user interaction takes place via fixed or mobile access to the Internet. However, in many situations social relationships are ad-hoc (i.e., set up by (mobile) users located in a limited geographical area during a certain period in time). To effectively support this kind of social relationships, we propose an extension of basic social networking model – the ad-hoc social networking. This paper defines the model for ad-hoc social networking, describes functionalities and architecture of a platform for ad-hoc social networking and explains why software agents are opportune technology for platform implementation. Finally, paper presents several applications of ad-hoc social networking.