Despite the obvious importance of pervasive computing to help the user cope with the growing number of devices and services that surround her, thus far the take-up of developments emanating from research in this area has been somewhat limited. On the other hand Social Networking Systems have developed at an extraordinary rate with widespread take-up. By bringing together these two paradigms in an integrated and seamless way one can create a Pervasive Social Networking (PSN) system that can provide the benefits of both. To assist in developing pervasive systems the notion of a Personal Smart Space was introduced. This paper extends this notion to that of a Cooperating Smart Space and the accompanying Community Interaction Space which can be used as a basis for developing a PSN. The Societies project is currently using this to develop a PSN which will be evaluated in terms of its usefulness and effectiveness in a series of field trials with real users starting in the last quarter of 2012. The largest of these will involve a cohort of students and this paper also reports briefly on preparatory work leading to the implementation of the PSN system to be used in the student trials.
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