Applying GIS in GeoModeling of Social Networks

The main characteristic of the new World Wide Web trend, also known as Web 2.0, is the ability to share information online and create different modes of collaboration. Web 2.0 has been replacing the static nature of the World Wide Web with the dynamic and real-time content. In such a transition process, the social nature of the World Wide Web has changed. Websites or other forms of Internet applications have started to become more community based, thus allowing interaction, collaboration and content-sharing between users. At the same time, it provides a different view of the complex social networking and cultural dynamics within a society. Accordingly, social media feeds are becoming increasingly Geosocial in the sense that they often have a substantial geographic content. Such information contributes with additional feature to social media (location) and provides additional context for the analysis of these data (topics and sentiment). As such, it represents an emerging alternate form of geographic information, which, through its volume and richness, opens new avenues and research challenges for the understanding of dynamic events and situations. The use of Geographic Information System in GeoModeling of social networks is inherently complex, as it comprises the study of various types of content, connections and locations.