In the last few years, a new type of synchronous social networking services (SNSs) has emergedsocial live streaming services (SLSSs). Studying SLSSs is a new and exciting research field in information science. What information behaviors do users of live streaming platforms exhibit? In our empirical study we analyzed information production behavior (i.e., broadcasting) as well as information reception behavior (watching streams and commenting on them). We conducted two quantitative investigations, namely an online survey with YouNow users (N = 123) and observations of live streams on YouNow (N = 434). YouNow is a service with video streams mostly made by adolescents for adolescents. YouNow users like to watch streams, to chat while watching, and to reward performers by using emoticons. While broadcasting, there is no anonymity (as in nearly all other WWW services). Synchronous SNSs remind us of the film The Truman Show, as anyone has the chance to consciously broadcast his or her own life real-time

Today we cannot imagine our everyday life without the Internet. Some of us do not even remember the times, when we actually had to get outside to buy new clothes or book a vacation. Now, all these tasks can be managed, with the help of the Internet, comfortably from our homes. One of the most booming Internet offerings are the so-called social media. In our study we investigate the divergences in social media usage between different generations. The out-comes of our investigation might be a valuable guide for businesses focusing on online marketing, social shopping, or e-commerce in general, and desiring to reach the right target groups. Once the businesses identified services mostly used by their target customers, they can focus on building a relationship with them through the social network, committing them to the brand and, hence, influencing their decision-making.

Can cities be smart? In this article we define what a smart city is and formulate categories and indicators of smart and/or informational cities. Based on these measures, we investigate four Japanese cities as case studies that appear to be highly developed modern metropolises. We focus on infrastructures essential for an informational city as base for a ubiquitous, smart (in a narrow sense), creative, and knowledge city. We measure the level of "smartness" or "informativeness" for each city and create a ranking. Finally, as essential preconditions for a successful development of smart cities, we present political initiatives in Japan.

Contemporary and future cities are often labeled as "smart cities," "digital cities" or "ubiquitous cities," "knowledge cities," and "creative cities." Informational urbanism includes all aspects of information and (tacit as well as explicit) knowledge with regard to urban regions. "Informational city" (or "smart city" in a broader sense) is an umbrella term uniting the divergent trends of informationrelated city research. Informational urbanism is an interdisciplinary endeavor incorporating on the one side computer science and information science as well as on the other side urban studies, city planning, architecture, city economics, and city sociology. In this article, we present both, a conceptual framework for research on smart cities as well as results from our empirical studies on smart cities all over the world. The framework consists of seven building blocks, namely information and knowledge related infrastructures, economy, politics (e-governance) and administration (e-government), spaces (spaces of flows and spaces of places), location factors, the people's information behavior, and problem areas.