Social-aware video delivery: challenges, approaches, and directions

Abstract

We have recently witnessed the convergence of online social network services and online video services: users import videos from content sharing sites, and propagate them along the social connections by re-sharing them. Such social behaviors have dramatically reshaped how videos are disseminated, and users are now actively engaged as part of the social ecosystem, rather than being passive consumers. Despite the increasingly abundant bandwidth and computation resources, the ever increasing data volume of user generated video content and the boundless coverage of socialized sharing have presented unprecedented challenges. This article first presents the challenges in social-aware video delivery. Then we present a principal framework for social-aware video delivery and a state-of-the-art overview of approaches. Moreover, we identify the unique characteristics of social-aware video access and social content propagation, and reveal the design of individual modules and their integration toward enhancing users' experience in the social network context. Finally, we discuss future research directions.