Towards a Framework for Weaving Social Networks Into Mobile Commerce

This paper discusses a framework that supports weave social elements into mobile commerce applications. This weaving takes place through different types of social networks that identify the stakeholders taking part in completing these applications. These stakeholders are consumers, providers, and brokers and are connected to each other through relationships such as competition, referral, loyalty, and collaboration. Each relationship is mapped onto a social network upon which a stakeholder relies before engaging in any of these applications and afterwards, making any decision. The value-added of social networks to mobile commerce is illustrated with a set of experiments implementing a smart mobile restaurant guide.