noddyCha Speaks: What is Social Computing ? the easy way..

When you look at the title of this post, you might be thinking for a while as to there are a million posts and articles that you can find in Google for the keyword "What is Social Computing ?" :) Why yet another post with same title ?? Will be back to this point in a while.. Let me put some of the definitions for "Social Computing" you can find online..

"Social computing is a general term for an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems."
- Wikipedia

"Social Computing is a concept to research and develop software that contributes to compelling and effective social interactions, with a focus on user-centered design processes and rapid prototyping combined with rigorous social science."
- Microsoft Research

"Social computing is the collaborative and interactive aspect of online behavior. The term can be understood in contrast to personal computing, which describes the behavior of isolated users."

- WhatIs.com

"The Social Computing is to work on models for information processing that work from multiple angles. To build sociotechnical tools that aim to create substantive human connections as part of the process of data analysis. "

- The MIT Media Lab

"Social Computing Research focuses on methods for harvesting the collective intelligence of groups of people in order to realize greater value from the interaction between users and information."

- HP Social Computing Research

The list is boundless...

So, Let us try to decode the concept in naive sense about social and computation..

What really is Social Computing?

The drift happening in the digital ways of communication and collaboration among people.
Doing anything and everything you do in your daily life with people behaviour and sentiment calculation in mind.
Capturing the interactions among people and getting a meaning out of it.
Analysis and Prediction of market behaviour and human reaction.

How it started?

Any guesses..?
The Idea of social computing originated around the year 1940.
Memex(1940), were one of the first ever social communication conceptual medium.
As the years passed, the change in ways of social communication progressed gradually by the following advancements in the field of - Computers(1950), ARPA(1960), Office Automation(1970), Computer Supported Collaborative Work(1980), Groupware(1990), Web(1992), Social Software(1995), Social Networking Websites(2001), Social Media(2003), Facebook(2004)..

How it works?

By the People, For the People and To the People.
People put content for other people and this collection of user data forms the basis of a social computing.
The best far ever social computing products have been concentrating on behavior and reaction of people to real world problems they face.
Reading problems that people are facing and finding a better solution for it.

Is it Fundamental shift in the way we communicate? Or is it just a Fad?

Social Media, Social Communication, Social Computing and Social Networking is the next best thing happening on the Web.
People want to revolutionalize the way they work and collaborate in their workplace.
Organisations wants a better way of marketing their products.
People love to know about their friends and want to see what their friends like or willing at ?
Social Media is the Modern way of doing Business Process by overriding the Legacy way of doing things.

How can we take it to our lives?

If you ever used facebook, twitter or linkedin.. You have experienced social computing.
Social way of life makes us realize the things around us with more clarity and visibility.
By using the social communication and other applications based on social domain.

What for it can be used?

Social Computing can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere and for any cause.
Right from your friends birthday invite to solving world hunger strike.. Social computing helps us do the needful for the people.
Market Research and Analysis.
Branding and Marketing.
Business Process/ Process Flow optimization.

Guess The Future?