InstantSocial: social networking in mobile ad-hoc environments

Abstract

This report covers the research, design and prototype implementation of a social application for mobile ad-hoc networks, InstantSocial. The main goals of this project has been to look at this exciting field and examine how the European scientific collaborative project MUSIC can be used to develop such an application. The project has been conducted using a Design Science approach. First the field of interest, existing similar applications and technology was examined to get a good view of the current state-of-the-art and choose a suitable prototype application. Then the design of the application was constructed, emphasizing the important features outlined in the project goals. Finally a prototype was developed and tested as a means to prove the correctness and applicability of the design. The results of the project was somewhat divided. Although the developed prototype had limited functionality, mostly because of the current limitations of the used framework, the tests that were performed where positive. Not all of the requirements of the system was successfully implemented, but this was due to limited time available or limitations in the currently available version of the framework rather than a shortage of the design. We conclude that the presented design and approach to context-adaptation is very plausible as a way in which the MUSIC project can be used to develop social application for mobile ad-hoc networks, but that much more work and testing is required before such an application can be fully realized.