Virtuallyseductivequalitiesofidentitysharing,contentgratification,andamplesocialatmosphere havemadeFacebookthemostpopularsocialnetwork,boasting890milliondailyusers(“Facebook ReportsFourthQuarter,”2015;Joinson,2008;Orchardetal.,2014,Reineckeetal.,2014).Online socialnetworkstudieslargelyoverlooktheindividual,limitingtheunderstandingofwhatexactl...

It is important for mobile service providers to be aware of user contexts and to provide contextually relevant mobile services to users. Thereby, in this paper, we propose a novel mechanism for integrating online social networks, which are regarded as an important channel for exchanging and propagating contexts. To efficiently discover personal contexts of certain users, the contexts of their n...

Instant quality feedback in the form of online peer ratings is a prominent feature of modern massive online social networks (MOSNs). It allows network members to indicate their appreciation of a post, comment, photograph, etc. Some MOSNs support both positive and negative (signed) ratings. In this study, we rated 11 thousand MOSN member profiles and collected user responses to the ratings. MOSN...

All major on-line social networks, such as MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Orkut, are built around the concept of friendship. It is not uncommon for a social network participant to have over 100 friends. A natural question arises: are they all real friends of hers, or does she mean something different when she calls them “friends?” Speaking in other words, what is the relationship between o...

The increasing amount of information flowing through commercial social networks offers clear advantages for companies who can take a valuable feedback from community actions. In particular, the identification of influential users in on-line social network can support companies in designing and targeting marketing campaigns, as influential gate-keepers and diffusers of information can ignite epi...

Targeted online advertising elicits a potential threat.A commercial agent has a chance to mitigate the visibility of hisopponents because their sales or services are of similar types. Inthis paper, we consider the competition for attention in popularonline social networks (OSNs) that usually employ a timeline-based homepage to sort messages chronologically in a limitedvi...

In recent years, our research group has been investigating the use of computing technology to support noviceoriented computer-based musical activities. CODES (Cooperative Music Prototyping Design) is a Web-based environment designed to allow novice users to create musical prototypes through combining basic sound patterns. This paper shows how CODES has been changed to provide support to some co...

Adolescence is a developmental period in which social networks (cohesive groupings of peers to which the youth belongs) become important for identity, adjustment, and future relationships. This essay provides an overview of what is known about the characterization, formation, and maintenance of social networks during adolescence. Given the recent explosion of online social networks, such as the...

Nowadays, users join several on-line social networks (OSNs) so that design and development applications able to work on multiple OSNs is a challenging issue. However, OSNs present relevant differences from both the adopted terminology (similar concepts have different names) and the supported technology (for example, in the APIs provided for data extraction). Consequently, the heterogeneity of O...

This position paper discusses the role of advanced sensor systems, integrated into smart homes and transportation networks and measuring use and consumption, in supporting a transition at the level of individuals, small groups and entire communities, to more sustainable ways of living. It focuses on how such technologies can be leveraged as a motivational tool. In particular it highlights the p...