SNAP : the social network adaptive portal

Abstract

Since the boom of social networking lead to people using multiple account on many platforms in order to keep in touch with hundreds of contacts, managing one's contacts risks becoming a burden for many users. Following and finding information about friends and family has become an issue too. Guided by these observations and by careful research of existing adaptive web technologies, our team worked on the development of SNAP - an adaptive social network integrator which aimed to amalgamate four social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Buzz) in one adaptive environment, which to unobtrusively sort the users' feed according to his/her preference. To achieve data transfer and authorisation, SNAP used APIs and the newest version of the OAuth protocol. Adaptivity was achieved through statistical filtering. Despite efforts, the initial field tests show that the system is not as yet ready to be launched for wider use. However, there is room for improvement in terms of Social Network Integration, and tester users expressed an interest in the idea of using an adaptive social integrator such as SNAP.