Alessia D’Andrea

An Overview of Methods for Virtual Social Networks Analysis

The increasing achievement of the Web has led people to exploit collaborative technologies in order to encourage partnerships among different groups. The cooperation can be achieved by Virtual Social Networks that facilitate people’s social interaction and enable them to remain in touch with friends exploiting the pervasive nature of information devices and services. The interest in analysing Virtual Social Networks has grown massively in recent years, and it involves researches from different fields. This led to the development of different methods to study relationships between people, groups, organisations- and other knowledge-processing entities on the Web. This chapter classifies these methods in two categories. The first category concerns methods used for the network data collection while the second category deals with methods used for the network data visualisation. The chapter gives an example of application of these methods to analyse the Virtual Social Network LinkedIn.

Evolution of Marketing Strategies: From Internet Marketing to M-Marketing

The paper describes the evolution of marketing strategies from the advent of the Web (Internet Marketing) through the advent of Social Networks (Marketing 2.0) to the evolution of Mobile Social Networks (M-marketing). Moreover the paper analyses the use that Italian people make of mobile devices and the user perception and acceptance of M-marketing on considering the characteristics that influence them. Finally a short discussion on viral marketing trend is given.

EMAG: An Extended Multimodal Attribute Grammar for Behavioural Features

This work aims at providing a linguistic representation of multimodal behavioural features in human–human and human–machine communication processes. Different multimodal behavioural features are considered, such as the tone and type of sentence for speech; size, slant, and individual social stile for handwriting; and trait, pressure, dimension, and individual personality for sketch. In order to represent these features, an Extended Multimodal Attribute Grammar (EMAG) has been defined in the article. A discussion of the EMAG expressiveness and a validation of the EMAG inference have been provided.

A Framework to Promote and Develop a Sustainable Tourism by Using Social Media

The paper provides a framework which involves different Social Media (such as Social networks, Wiki, Podcasting, Blogs and Really Simple Syndication) able to promote and develop a sustainable tourism in a shared and participatory approach. More in detail, the paper starts from an analysis of the tools used in the old and the new economy, by highlighting the technological tourism trend . Then the paper illustrates how Social Media can develop a sustainable tourism involving both tourists and local communities. Finally, future scenarios of virtual tourism are given.

The MARINA Project: Promoting Responsible Research and Innovation to Meet Marine Challenges

The MARINA project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme with the aim to create an all-inclusive Knowledge Sharing Platform for catalysing and federating the convergence of already existing networks, communities, online platforms and services by addressing marine research issues and topics according to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles. Several marine research issues and topics have been discussed in the 17 Mobilisation and Mutual Learning work-shops during the first year of the project. This paper shows the results of the first series of workshops analysed according to RRI principles and societal and marine challenges.

Co-creativity Process by Social Media within the Product Development Process

Social media are computer-mediated communication tools frequently used for co-creating value because they promote communication, interaction and collaboration among all actors. This paper provides a description of the co-creativity process by Social Media within the product development process analysing the consumers’ involvement in the different steps (product design and production, product improvement before market introduction; product sale and product innovation).