Social IoT: The next generation of social interaction

Modern society has multiple channels of communication; and therefore, multiple ways to promote sociability and social relationships. The society is being configured with multiple channels of social interaction, which favor the construction of social identities. And among the possible channels, the internet appears as a powerful tool of intercommunication of modern society. The possibilities for mass social interaction supported by new communication technologies date back just a decade. However, it can be assumed that the diversity of channels of interaction must enable the intensification and social diffusion of new behaviors in society. Channels and interaction that create a virtual space of sociability, with real effects on human relationships.

It is still early to know the consequences of this new social phenomenon, but, according to experts, towards the end of the third decade of the century, will be effective and widespread a process of socialization in virtual communities, especially in communities of common interest of a professional nature, cultural etc.

In the opinion of experts, the evolution of social media is very difficult to determine, but if we take into account what is happening today, probably the social networks that are growing the most, and therefore most successful, will be those that recreates a close and realistic emotional environment.

In the field of ICT, one of the most profound and decisive transformations of future change trends is the Internet of Things (IoT). The network is evolving significantly, thanks to 4 technological vectors with great possibilities, miniaturization, wireless conceptuality, increasing data storage capacity and increased capacity to analyze that data.

Also, SIoT (Social IoT) emerged as a new conceptual approach where the Social Network paradigm is applied to the world of IoT facilitating the communication process, and working towards a new model to improve the connection between devices and users and between the devices themselves, beyond the classic M2M ( Machine2Machine) or M2H ( Machine2Human) communication.

Social Networks have shown to have unbeatable characteristics at a structural and relational level focused on the user, which has allowed them to enjoy an impressive social impact and, in short, has created a new form of communication and understanding.

The principle that a large number of people linked in a social network can provide more precise answers to complex problems than a single individual, has been exploited in different areas related to the Internet, and has been used for the implementation of Internet of Things systems, who hope to integrate a large number of technologies and connect to tens of billions of objects in the short term and be able to exploit this principle.

In this context of connectivity between millions of objects and the users of Internet of Things services, the concept of Social Networks is applied to the IoT, and among its most ambitious objectives is that the objects themselves imitate human behavior and create relationships based on the rules established by their owners. This would improve communication between human beings and the vast number of objects connected to the network, which continues to grow day after day. Thus, the combination of the Social Network and the IoT will provide the latter with the following new features and capabilities:

• Ability to define a profile.
•  Ability to subscribe to profiles and / or channels.
• Creation of communities and / or channels according to profiles.
• Establishment of different relationships depending on the environment.
• Improved communications for distributed systems.
• Scalability
• Access control, security elements and policies.

The archetype of the Social Internet of Things (SIoT, Social Internet of Things) defines how people access and integrate with things, bringing concepts of Social Networks to the field of the Internet of Things. In addition, SIoT solves most of the problems when establishing a communication, specifically:

Discovery: when a communication is established, in traditional systems the intervention of an intermediary agent is necessary. However, SIoT does feature device self-discovery mechanisms.

Addressing: Devices on a private network are usually assigned a static address or, otherwise, a dynamic address. In both cases, the routing process is hampered. In the SIoT, the identification of the users is assigned in the Social Network and in this way the platform easily manages the routing process.

Bidirectionality in communication: usually the problem of correctly addressing devices hinders communication in two directions. The SIoT provides a solution to this problem by ensuring communication.

At the same time, SIoT allows the publication of messages without the need to discover the devices, simply using trusted circles or communities, after the previous security filter and access control defined in said communities. Thus, a level of trust is established that enhances the degree of interaction between objects classified as “friends”, that is, it is possible to associate them through some type of relationship within the network. Objects can establish social relationships based on the object's profile, activities and interests (applications implemented in the object and services it offers). These relationships can be classified by the events that trigger their establishment:

• A "co-location" relationship between objects that are always used in the same place.
• A “co-working” relationship when elements collaborate to provide a common IoT application.
• A "parental" relationship related to objects belonging to the same production batch.
• A "social" relationship when objects come into contact, sporadically or continuously, because their owners have contact with each other during their lives.
• A "co-ownership" relationship between heterogeneous objects that belong to a user.

Access to information instantly and in a segmented way by the appropriate personnel directly on their wearables is an important added value and complement to current systems & business models.

The general effect that IoT can have on social media is enormous and spurring. In the context of social media, IOT will be able to distribute some of the most important benefits, including tracking the behavior of consumers in real-time and increasing awareness on the situation. This can be very useful for businesses who relies on deep insights into consumer behavior to deliver the desired services #CreateTheFuture