Yaffa Rachel Riahi , ID: 33254929

Social Networks and Mobile Networks.

For a couple of years, social network has made a revolution in the way of using internet (we
estimate that over 40% of global Internet traffic is carried on social networking websites) and mobile
Internet has become a prevailing use of the web.

Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace for example have changed the way people interact altogether. We
live in a socialized world: people used to interact only through physical manner, but now they
interact through communications platforms of exchange and sharing of so-called "social networks".

These platforms have multiple uses: there are both communication support, information transfer,
reunion, and meeting. They enable to diminish communication costs as well.

These platforms tend to satisfy the growing demand of mobile web surfing. We can estimate that in
2012 there will be about 428 million users of such social networks world while. This represents an
increase of 370%.

In order to meet the demand, we saw an emerging social web, which necessarily passes through the
use of the cell phone and mobile network.

The link between social networks and mobile networks:

First of all, in these two expressions, we can find the common use of the word "network". This leads
us to the study of what consists with these two structures in order to find similarities between them.

We can notice that cell phones and mobile social networks have a sociologic function. "A social
network is a set of social entities such as individuals or social organizations linked together by bonds
created during social interactions. It is represented by a structure or a dynamic form of a social group
"

As we have studied in class, we can find here the social networks theory:

Indeed, we could build up a graph with nodes which could look like cell phone and the links between
the different entities would be the emitted waves.

Indeed, there are many components of a social networking platform in a phone. The profile would be
represented by the telephone number of a person who has access to the profile of all his contacts
through his address book and would have at its disposal the means of exchange and communication
of voice, SMS, etc..
 This set of nodes and links can also fit into an interconnection more complicated of cables and
antennas. Therefore, we get the same structure of "network".

On these platforms , virtual profiles and interactions between them lead to what we may call: an E-
reputation. This phenomenon enables to assess the influence of each member of the group.

The emergence of new players and a new offer:

New players have entered the market and have proposed a new offer: mobile social
networks. For instance, the mobile use of the GPS on the cell phone. The concept of mobile
application enables to avoid problems of format and compatibility but raises the problem of
compatibility between applications of different brands.

The success of this consumption product has been validated. Indeed, there are already more than
one billion of applications, three billions of downloading and Apple alone has more than one billion
of applications downloading.

Social networks on mobile cell phone have changed radically the behavior of internet users and
introduced new uses by creating platforms in which people can exchange, share and meet.

In reference to what we studied in class, we can find here the network structure (graphs with nodes
and links with different interactions) and interactions between the different reputations enable to
build up for each individual an E-reputation and to establish some rules. An individual with an
opened network will have more influence than an individual with a closed network. An opened
network will be more useful than a closed one.

We can find as well the concept of "Friend of a Friend" based on mutual trust of members of the
same network that allows the connection between two people with mutual friends and enables them
to meet each other.

To conclude, we may say that the web evolves according to the new uses that raise up and it
exists from now a new tool for mobility of cybernauts: The mobile.
Telephony has advantages that cannot be found on the web such as Geolocation. Geographical
positioning is a new use of the cell phone and social networks. It enables to make people getting
interacted with unknown individuals, who don't share any common friends. This interaction is made
feasible thank to the common Geolocation between people.
The new challenge is not anymore the contact between individuals but a continuous contact.
Following the ATAWAD concept: Any Time, Any Where, Any Device and these pass through mobile
networks
This phenomenon has had a positive economic externality: people have tried to equip themselves
with smart phones in order to communicate between them. However, there are other negative
externalities such as phone lines' saturation. In addition to the social networks have not proven their
profitability (eg Credit Suisse estimates that Google has lost $ 470 million in 2008 because of
YouTube)

Sources:

- http://www.slideshare.net/BenHuc/internet-mobile-et-reseaux-sociaux-quel-role-pour-
les-operateurs-de-telecommunication

- http://www.itrmobiles.com/index.php/articles/112427/web-mobile-applications-mobile-
depend-contenus.html