Sentient Computing meets Social Networking

Sentient computing was conceived in 1999 and aims to make applications more responsive and useful by observing and reacting to the physical world [7]. It is particularly attractive in a world of mobile users and computers. In recent years we have observed a convergence between services enabled by ubiquitous computing technologies [16] and applications offered to social networks. The overlap will continue to increase as ‘web-friendly’ handsets flood the market and sensors becomes more commonplace. There has been work published on the social implications of ubiquitous computing [5], but as the technologies spread out of laboratories and into real-life settings we believe their potential benefit to social networking is worthy of further consideration. Our aim in this position paper is to identify this intersection as a fruitful topic for discussion, provide references to a few examples of relevant research and offer thoughts on lessons learnt and challenges for the future.