Special issue on mobile social networks

Social networks contribute a significant fraction of Internet traffic, and increasingly this traffic is in support of mobile social networking using smart phones. This situation has spurred considerable recent research interest in mobile social networks. Social networks have been studied for decades, although most of the earlier work in this area addressed issues lying outside the scope of technological networks. High bandwidth wireless networking enabling ubiquitous access of smart phones to the Internet completely enriches various potential of mobile social networks. However, there are still significant technological challenges in the development of the cloud infrastructure and mobile terminal devices. The purpose of this special issue is to highlight recent advances that address some of these mobile user-centric challenges.