Social networking applications have emerged as the platform of choice for carrying out a number of different activities online. In addition to their primary target of social interaction, we now also employ such applications to search for information online or to share multimedia content with our friends and families.  For instance, according to recent statistics, each of us spends on average 15 min on YouTube every day. Similarly noteworthy is the daily rate of queries that Twitter’s search engine receives: 600 million. These activities generate enormous quantities of data traffic that burdens the underlying transport network. Can the social and data network be integrated to enable enhanced- and cost-effective performance? To find answers, please read the column article entitled Bridging Social and Data Network in the March issue of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.