Social Software

This article is about computer software. For the Social Procedure field of research, see Social Software.
The term Social software is normally applied to a range of web-enabled software programs. The programs usually allow users to interact, share, and meet other users. This computer-mediated communication has become very popular with sites like MySpace and YouTube and has resulted in large user bases and billion dollar purchases of the software and their communities by large corporations (News Corp purchased MySpace and Google purchased YouTube).
The more specific term collaborative software applies to cooperative information sharing systems, and is usually narrowly applied to the software that enables collaborative work functions. Distinctions between usage of the terms "social" and "collaborative" are in the applications or uses, not the tools themselves, although there are some tools that are only rarely used for work collaboration.
Social technologies or Conversational technologies used in organizations, in particular a network-centric organization, are other terms used to describe knowledge creation and storage that is carried out through collaborative writing. Constructivist learning theorists such as Vygotsky; Leidner & Jarvenpaa explained that the process of expressing knowledge aids its creation and conversations benefits the refinement of knowledge. Conversational KM fulfills this purpose because conversations, e.g. questions and answers, become the source of relevant knowledge in the organisation. Conversational technologies are seen as tools to support work units and the individual knowledge worker.
Many advocates of using these tools believe (and actively argue or assume) that they create actual communities, and have adopted the term "online communities" to describe the resulting social structures.

wikipedia


"Social software includes podcasts, blogs and wikis -- anything that fosters the development of social networks. One IT manager at the session, Ted Stoddard, director of operations at Federal Signal Corp. in Oak Brook Ill., a company that makes security and safety products, said he suspects that many people, as he has, have already assembled their strategic plans for next year. While some of the items on Gartner's list, such as virtualization, are part of his plan, he hasn't considered others, such as social networking technologies like blogs. Those are probably worth looking at, Stoddard said, "but there are more important things to work on now."

Computerworld


Tools for online communication

"The tools used in social software applications include communication tools and interactive tools. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing, and presentation of communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video also. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They differ from communication tools in their focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mechanics of conversation and talk. Communication tools are generally asynchronous. Interactive tools are generally synchronous, allowing users to communicate in real time (phone, Net phone, video chat) or near-synchronous (IM, text chat).
We can add to this distinction one that describes the primary user experience of each: communication involves the content of talk, speech, or writing; interaction involves the interest users establish in one another as individuals. In other words, a communication tool may want to make access and searching of text both simple and powerful. An interactive tool may want to present as much of a user's expression, performance, and presence as possible. The organization of texts, and providing access to archived contributions differs from the facilitation of interpersonal interactions between contributors enough to warrant the distinction in media."

wikipedia