Blending of Socializing, Gaming and Information-Related Activities in Mobile Social Application Prototypes: Cues for Research, Design and Development

Mobile social applications are becoming increasingly popular with a growing number of users turning to mobile devices for socializing, information sharing, retrieval or related activities, and/or gaming. The increased interest in the domain has resulted in numerous application prototypes being reported in the recent years that combine elements of socializing, gaming, and information related activities, powered by an ability to pinpoint user location, (location sensitivity), a feature touted to be a key characteristic of modern mobile applications. By varying the mix of one or few of the above elements, the prototypes are able to provide interesting and novel features and functionalities for their respective target user groups. In this paper, we provide an overview of sixteen research prototypes in the genre of mobile social applications reported in the last three years, followed by an analysis which reveals a trend towards designs that aim to provide higher levels of location sensitivity to support different shades of socializing, diverse information related functions and an assortment of embedded games.