QoE management in emerging multimedia services

The realization of the paradigm of Internet anywhere, anytime and any-device and the diffusion of end-user multimedia devices with powerful and userfriendly capabilities, such as smartphones/PDAs, tablet PCs, mobile gaming terminals, and ebook readers, are leading to the proliferation of a wide range of emerging multimedia services, including immersive environments, mobile online gaming, 3D virtual world, book/newspaper consumption, social networking, and IPTV applications, just to cite a few. Some of these services have already reached a major market success, such as the case of newspaper/magazine mobile readers and smartphone multimedia apps. Their success has been achieved especially because a user-centric approach has been followed to design the whole process of content production, service activation, content consumption, service management, and updating. Indeed, the quality of the user experience, the perceived simplicity of accessing and interacting with systems and services, and the effective and acceptable hiding of the complexity of underlying technologies are determining factors for success or failure of these novel services.