MobiSoC: a middleware for mobile social computing applications Ankur Gupta & Achir Kalra & Daniel Boston & Cristian Borcea Published online: 8 November 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008 Abstract Recently, we started to experience a shift from physical communities to virtual communities, which leads to missed social opportunities in our daily routine. For instance, we are not aware of neighbors with common interests or nearby events. Mobile social computing applications (MSCAs) promise to improve social connec- tivity in physical communities by leveraging information about people, social relationships, and places. This article presents MobiSoC, a middleware that enables MSCA development and provides a common platform for captur- ing, managing, and sharing the social state of physical communities. Additionally, it incorporates algorithms that discover previously unknown emergent geo-social patterns to augment this state. To demonstrate MobiSoC's feasibility, we implemented and tested on smart phones two MSCAs for location-based mobile social matching and place-based ad hoc social collaboration. Experimental results showed that MobiSoC can provide good response time for 1,000 users. We also demonstrated that an adaptive localization scheme and carefully chosen cryptographic methods can significantly reduce the resource consumption associated with the location engine and security on smart phones. A user study of the mobile social matching application proved that geo-social patterns can double the quality of social matches and that people are willing to share their location with MobiSoC in order to benefit from MSCAs. Keywords mobile social computing . middleware . smart phones 1 Introduction Social computing applications such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn improve social connectivity via collaboration and coordination by enabling compelling and effective on- line social interactions. However, these applications lead to a shift from physical communities to virtual communities. Currently, people living or working in the same places routinely miss opportunities to leverage inter-personal affinities (e.g., shared interests and backgrounds) for friendship, learning, or business through a simple lack of awareness. Furthermore, they are not aware of nearby places and social events, which they would normally like to visit or attend. Mobile social computing applications (MSCAs) can take advantage of mobile computing algorithms, wireless tech- nologies, and real-time location systems to help people re- connect with their physical communities and surroundings. With the widespread adoption of powerful mobile devices, such as smart phones, these applications will fundamentally change the way we interact with each other and with the physical world. Such applications can help people stay in touch anytime, anywhere, provide real-time recommenda- tions about people, places, and events, or deliver custom- ized/personalized content function of the user's geo-social context. For instance, MSCAs can answer questions such as the following: Are any of my friends in the cafeteria right Mobile Netw Appl (2009) 14:35–52 DOI 10.1007/s11036-008-0114-9 A. Gupta : A. Kalra : D. Boston : C. Borcea (*) Department of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA e-mail: borcea@cs.njit.edu A. Gupta e-mail: ag59@njit.edu A. Kalra e-mail: ak95@njit.edu D. Boston e-mail: djb38@njit.edu