Towards a New Generation of Social Networks: Merging Social Web with Semantic Web

This article investigates several well-known social network applications such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Last.fm, Flickr and identifies semantics and social data portability as the main technical issues that need to be addressed in the future. We argue that these issues can be addressed by building social networks like Semantic Web applications with FOAF, SIOC, and Linked Data technologies, and show how this can be done by implementing a prototype application using Java and core Semantic Web technologies. The developed prototype shows how features from semantic websites such as Freebase and DBpedia can be reused in social applications and lead to more relevant content and stronger social connections. In addition, the article discusses a number of issues that need to be addressed in the design and implementation of semantic social networks, which could serve as a guideline in the implementation of other semantic social applications.