Social Computing: An Overview

TLDR

Social computing technologies are rapidly transforming the Web, characterized by community formation, user‑generated content, and computing, and are driving growth comparable to the dot‑com era. The paper provides an overview of social computing and identifies its salient characteristics. The authors review existing literature and synthesize key features of social computing. The authors contend that social computing has disruptive potential for business and society, can alter organized human action, poses security risks, and should be a priority for researchers and business leaders, highlighting shifts in communication, computing, collaboration, and commerce.

Abstract

A collection of technologies termed social computing is driving a dramatic evolution of the Web, matching the dot-com era in growth, excitement, and investment. All of these share high degree of community formation, user level content creation, and computing, and a variety of other characteristics. We provide an overview of social computing and identify salient characteristics. We argue that social computing holds tremendous disruptive potential in the business world and can significantly impact society, and outline possible changes in organized human action that could be brought about. Social computing can also have deleterious effects associated with it, including security issues. We suggest that social computing should be a priority for researchers and business leaders and illustrate the fundamental shifts in communication, computing, collaboration, and commerce brought about by this trend.