Mobile Social Software - Potentials and Limitations of Enabling Social Networking on Mobile Devices

Driven by the increased usage of information and communication technology (ICT) the typical behavior and the acting of users in private as well as in professional settings changed dramatically over the last years. Modern applications of ICT are seen as instruments to fulfill the wants and needs of heterogeneous user groups. Above of all, the event of the Internet as well as the omnipresent availability of computing systems and mobile technologies altered the communication between users. For instance nowadays a lot of them regularly use Web-based search engines to search for information, they chat with friends, upload and share pictures which they took for instance with their mobile phone camera, and last but not least they download and share music files to listen to them on their mobile devices. Against this background the users already experience the medial convergence which they have to create actively.