What is Social Software (or Social Technology)

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A new civil digital culture has taken hold, in which so-called ‘social’ and/or ‘conversational’ technologies are providing unprecedented opportunities for everyday civil user activities. The attraction of these social technologies is their low cost, intuitive functionality, and connectivity. Social technologies provide computer-mediated environments that use applications such as Weblogs (blogs), Wikis, chatrooms, and various Web-based groupware systems. They support new forms of informal, network-centric interaction and activity between people, allowing and enhancing informal access to create and distribute information. These technologies empower ordinary people to have a global presence for business, political and social purposes. The new social technologies are tools of a rising digital democracy that provide users with a new flexibility and independence to support collective actions, knowledge sharing and decision making by self-directed groups. Social technologies, which support cooperative socio-technical systems, are being appropriated by enlightened enterprises which are transforming from traditional hierarchical structures to more network-centric configurations. Learn more in: Complex Organizations and Information Systems