Social computing for cooperation

Social computing tries out the intersection of social behaviour and computational systems. It has to do with supporting any sort of social behaviour in or through computational systems. Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing, but also other kinds of software applications where people interact socially. In this respect it is today's CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) environment. Social software encompasses a range of software systems that allow users to interact and share data. This computer-supported communication has become very popular with social sites like Facebook and Twitter, media sites like Flickr and You Tube as well as a range of Blogs and Wikis. Many of these applications share characteristics like open APIs, service-oriented design and the ability to upload data and media. The terms Web 2.0 and (for large-business applications) Enterprise 2.0 are also used to describe this style of software.