Abstract Mobile Social Networks represent a convergence between mobile communications and service-oriented paradigms, which are supported by the large availability and heterogeneity of resources and services offered by recent mobile devices. In particular, the service-oriented nature of MSN is in the capability of sharing resources and services among devices that lie in proximity and that opportunistically interact. Service discovery is thus of primary importance to sustain the most intimate mechanisms of MSN. Despite of their centrality, studies on service discovery in MSN are still in their youth. We contribute to frame the results achieved so far and to identify some possible perspectives of the research in this field, by giving a transversal review of the scientific outcomes in the different steps of service discovery, namely advertisement, query, selection and access.