Mobile Social Networks (MSNs) consist of mobile nodes that can exchange data using local wireless communication (e.g. Bluetooth, WiFi), when they are within transmission range. MSNs are envisioned to support communication in challenging environments, enhance existing cellular or WLAN networks, and enable novel social and location-based applications.
Communication performance in MSNs heavily depends on the underlying node mobility and the traffic demand patterns between them. In addition, numerous studies from different disciplines, have shown that mobility/traffic patterns are (a) largely heterogeneous and (b) correlated to nodes social characteristics. To this end, we analytically investigate to what extent mobility/traffic/social heterogeneity affects mobile social networking. We propose novel models that take into account key aspects of real MSN users'
characteristics, and analyze the performance of networking mechanisms (e.g. routing protocols or content-delivery schemes).
While the main focus is on MSNs, we provide insights on how our analytical approaches and/or many of our results can have applicability in different contexts and network settings.