Virtual friend recommendations in virtual worlds
Authors: Liao, Hsiu-Yu; Chen, Kuan-Yu; Liu, Duen-Ren
Journal: Decision Support Systems (2015)
DOI: 10.1016/i.dss.2014.11.005
Virtual worlds (VWs) are becoming effective interactive platforms in the fields of education, social sciences and humanities. Computing similarity among users is a technique commonly used to make friend recommendations in social networks. However, user communities in virtual worlds tend to have fewer real world linkages and more entertainment-related goals than those in social networks. The above characteristics result in an ineffective modality with respect to applying existing friend recommendation methods in virtual worlds. This study develops a virtual friend recommendation approach based on user similarity and contact strengths in virtual worlds. In the proposed approach, users' contact activities in virtual worlds are characterized into dynamic features and contact types to derive their contact strengths in communication-based, social-based, transaction-based, quest-based and relationship-based contact types. Classification approaches were developed to predict friend relationships based on user similarity and contact strengths among users. A novel friend recommendation approach is further developed herein to recommend friends as regards certain virtual worlds based on friend…