Towards a custom-made mobile apps market

21 October 2013

The innovative SOCAM project aims at developing an open-source operating system for mobile devices. This OS will include a module for the analysis of social networks, aimed at feeding app recommendation engines. This tool will enable users to identify the apps that are best suited to their needs or preferences.

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The mobile apps industry has a huge potential and is experiencing strong growth rates. The use of this kind of apps is largely linked to that of social networks, but, in this era of explosive growth in the volume of information and the variety of resources, filtering the knowledge available is becoming increasingly challenging for the end user. SOCAM’s Social Network Analysis (SNA) module attempts to overcome the difficulties users are finding to navigate, search and classify the contents available in the mobile apps markets, by helping them filter the overwhelming variety of choices available, to spot on those most relevant to them. The system learns what the user needs, and knows when and how to present it.

The SOCAM system will also allow app developers to retrieve special-purpose feedback, enabling them to improve their product and the end user experience. It can also be used to assess the topic and trend of comments about mobile apps made in the apps markets, which are the websites where you can find and download them. In addition, it will help the best apps to quickly propagate across the community of users of the Operating System, which can be very appealing for app developers, who nowadays need to make substantial investments in marketing, or rely on luck, to ensure that their apps will have enough visibility and reach a success level in line with their quality.

Analyzing social networks provides rich, extensive, context-related, geographically focused and virtually immediate information that enables to go far beyond traditional marketing studies. It can be very useful to understand and predict users’ behaviors, and to develop and recommend apps tailored to their needs. The SOCAM research project has been led by the privately-owned companies Zed Worldwide S.A. and Factory Holding Company 25 S.L. (FHC25). The SNA module has been developed in cooperation with the Madrid research institute IMDEA Networks, with the support from the Rey Juan Carlos and Carlos III Universities of Madrid. The successful collaboration in this project has led its members to a new stage through the ORÁCULO initiative. This “technological platform for real-time data packet analysis” builds on the achievements of SOCAM in order to make headway in the development of new technologies and tools that bring the Future Internet closer to the user.