Abstract

In this talk we describe the development of a platform that enables us to systematically study online social networks alongside their real-world counterparts. Our system, entitled Cityware for Facebook, merges users’ online social data, made available through Facebook, with mobility traces captured via Bluetooth scanning. Furthermore, our system is constantly growing, since it enables users to contribute their own mobility traces. In addition to describing Cityware’s architecture, we discuss the type of data we are collecting, and the analyses we have carried out.

Bio: Vassilis Kostakos is an Assistant Professor at Lab:USE at the University of Madeira, and an adjunct Assistant Professor at the Human- Computer Interaction institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a BSc and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Bath.

His research interests include mobile and pervasive computing, human- computer interaction, social networks, and usable security. He was previously a research associate at the University of Bath, where he worked on the Cityware project.