The document discusses the concept of a Social Internet of Things (SIoT) where objects can interact with each other in a social network-like structure. It notes that as the number of internet-connected objects grows into the trillions, a SIoT could help objects find each other by leveraging relationships similar to how social networks help humans connect. The SIoT would allow objects to publish information, services, and characteristics to become visible and discoverable to other objects and humans. It then outlines different types of relationships objects may have, such as parental, co-location, social, and ownership relationships.

1. THE SOCIAL INTERNET
OF THINGS

2. Social Internet of Things (1/2)
 Totalnumber of humans in the world:
around 7 billions
 Expected number of objects: trillions
 How to find the right object?
 Among humans …
2
Social networks! Why not the same for objects?
The Social Internet of Things

3. Social Internet of Things (2/2)
 Advantages
 Navigability*
 Scalable
 Trustworthiness
*J. Kleinberg, “The small-world phenomenon:
an algorithmic perspective”
in Proc. of ACM Symposium
on Theory and Computing, 2000
Reason Humans Things
Become visible Increase popularity Publish information/services
Find resources Find old friends Find information/services
Obtain context information Get filtered information Get environment characteristics
Find new services/updated 3
Discover new resources Find new friends
information
The Social Internet of Things

4. SIoT - Types of Relationships
Parental object relationship
Co-location object
relationship and co-work
object relationship
Social object relationship
Ownership object
relationship 4
The Social Internet of Things

5. SIoT - Relational Models (1/4)
Communal sharing
Humans/Things
• Behaviors of objects with collective relevance
• Focus on the service offered by the entire swarm
5
*A. P. Fiske, “The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a
unified theory of social relations,” Psychological review, vol. 99, 1992.
The Social Internet of Things

6. SIoT - Relational Models (2/4)
Equality matching
Humans/Things
Objects operate as equals and request/provide information
among them in the perspective of providing IoT services to
users while maintaining their individuality
6
The Social Internet of Things

7. SIoT - Relational Models (3/4)
Authority ranking
Humans/Things
Established between objects of different complexity and
hierarchical levels
•RFID reader and Tags, Bluetooth master and slave
7
The Social Internet of Things

8. SIoT - Relational Models (4/4)
Market pricing
Humans/Things
• Working together in the view of achieving mutual benefit
• Participation in this relationship only when it is worth
the while to do so 8
The Social Internet of Things

9. Your operator Free WiFi
I got the highest
network
Long line through
2 energy consumption
Better
second exit Via in the block
Maria’s
Roma route coverage
car Mauro’s house
3
1 Pavla’s 4
Mac
I discovered how to
connect to printer
192.167.131.60 Angela
Efisio’s car
I got a rare issue
5
… looking how
to fix it
In Rome the weather
Michele is unexpectedly cold
Mario is at “Il lido”
7 Luisa is at “Charlie” Disco
Giorgia is here 6 9
Laura
The Social Internet of Things

10. SIoT Components
Social Rela-
graph tionship
mngt
Service Social Service
Service
APIs presence ID Mngt disco-
APIs
Profiling very
Profiling Owner
control
Partici- Trust-
Relation Service
pation worthi-
control compo-
model ness
sition
mngt
Social Network Social Networks
for Humans* for Things
10
*D. M. Boyd and N. B. Ellison, “Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship,” Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 1, no. 13, 2007.
The Social Internet of Things

11. SIoT Architecture
11
11
The Social Internet of Things

12. Probability distributions of the minimum path length between a pair of 12/
randomly selected objects in SIoT and random network cases 80
The Social Internet of Things

13. SOME PUBLICATIONS
The Social Internet of Things (SIoT)–When social networks
meet the Internet of Things: Concept, architecture and
network characterization, L Atzori, A Iera, G Morabito, M
Nitti, Computer Networks, 2012
SIoT: Giving a social structure to the internet of things, L
Atzori, A Iera, G Morabito, Communications Letters, IEEE
2011
Making things socialize in the Internet – Does it help our
lives?, L Atzori, A Iera, G Morabito, ITU-T Kaleidoscope, 2011
The internet of things: A survey, L Atzori, A Iera, G Morabito
Computer Networks, 2010
A Subjective Model for Trustworthiness Evaluation in the
Social Internet of Things, M Nitti, L Atzori, R Giru, A Iera, G
Morabito, IEEE PIMRC, IoT-CN workshop, 2012