---

Virtual, social networks are indispensable in today´s day - being essential to keep in touch with family and friends. However, it is very important to take care about which private information is provided to the public. This book is about Social Networks: Information and Virtual Goods and deals specifically with the subject of reading out users´ information and virtual currencies inside a virtual social network. Furthermore, the growing of virtual social networks will be exposed. The description of genesis is based on virtual worlds and shows the transition to virtual, social platforms. In the following sections, some platforms will be described and compared to each other in detail. In addition the topic of this book is to find a way for reading out users private information and data for usage in other applications. Using the example of a well-known virtual, social platform called Facebook the basics how to develop an application used in this network will be explained. After this section the user will be able to create an application independently.

---

Udo Pichl, born 1979, was interested in information systems since his youth. He completed his studies in the field of multimedia information systems and management tools at the Technical University of Graz (Austria).

---