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With contributions from experts in both academia and private industry, this broad-based handbook provides comprehensive guidelines on the current and future trends in social network technologies and applications in the field of Web-based Social Networks.

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Social networking is a concept that has existed for a long time; however, with the explosion of the Internet, social networking has become a tool for people to connect and communicate in ways that were impossible in the past. The recent development of Web 2.0 has provided many new applications, such as Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The purpose of Handbook of Social Network Technologies and Applications is to provide comprehensive guidelines on the current and future trends in social network technologies and applications in the field of Web-based Social Networks. This handbook includes contributions from world experts in the field of social networks from both academia and private industry. A number of crucial topics are covered including Web and software technologies and communication technologies for social networks. Web-mining techniques, visualization techniques, intelligent social networks, Semantic Web, and many other topics are covered. Standards for social networks, case studies, and a variety of applications are covered as well.

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From the reviews:

"This book is a comprehensive overview of the theory behind the social networking applied in the electronic space. ... Impressive lists of references accompany all chapters, and several chapters offer brief case studies. The book also includes a useful index. This book is a useful resource for academics, educators, researchers, and graduate students, and, to a certain degree, designers, developers, engineers, and practitioners who wish to understand the social network theory background." (Rita Puzmanova, ACM Computing Reviews, August, 2011)

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Borko Furht is a professor and chairman of the Department of Computer & Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida. Professor Furht received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Belgrade. His current research is in multimedia systems, video coding and compression, 3D video and image systems, video databases, wireless multimedia, and Internet computing. He is a founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Multimedia Tools and Applications (Springer). He has received several technical and publishing awards, and has consulted for many high-tech companies including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, General Electric, JPL, NASA, Honeywell, and RCA, and has been an expert witness for Cisco and Qualcomm. He has given many invited talks, keynote lectures, seminars, and tutorials, and served on the Board of Directors of several high-tech companies.

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