Lessons Learned from Online Social Networking of Physical Things

Social networking is a core part of the global online experience. The Web 2.0 has been transformed into a social Web, extending the social capabilities of users. A big challenge for the Web is to become ubiquitous, blended with the everyday life of people. The Pervasive Web would be effectively enabled when physical things are seamlessly connected to the Web, offering real-world services to users. In a previous work, we examined the feasibility of utilizing existing online social networking platforms, to create a social smart home that promotes sharing of sensor and household devices between family members. In this paper, we present some early experiences obtained from developing two real-world social applications, the first for environmental monitoring in a farm and the second for increasing energy awareness by sharing electricity consumption information between friends. Through these two deployments, we demonstrate the potential benefits of giving a social texture to pervasive applications.