New Generation of Social Networks Based on Semantic Web Technologies

This article investigates several well-known social network applications such as Last.fm, Flickr and identifies social data portability as one of the main technical issues that need to be addressed in the future. We argue that this issue can be addressed by building social networks as Semantic Web applications with FOAF, SIOC, and Linked Data technologies, and prove it by implementing a prototype application using Java and core Semantic Web standards. Furthermore, 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.