Social networking and on-line communities: Classification and research trends

Abstract

We investigate the birth and evolution of the on-line social networks research field as it is outlined in several recent works published within the last four years. Our goal is to present how this particular subject attracts a continually growing interest, as during the last years the on-line social networks are transforming from a simple idea to a social-scientific phenomenon, thus attracting a variety of other related sciences towards the new interesting prospects that emerge on the Web. © 2011 IEEE.