Liz Lawley has announced via Many 2 Many a new Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Liz is Director of the Lab, the idea for emerged from discussions within the short-lived Social Software Alliance. The Alliance didn't last long not because there was a lack of interest, but because the instigators were quickly busy with various social software projects, sustaining communications in a decentralized way through many other channels. Social computing is alive and well and growing, and I'm pretty sure this is the first academic program in the field. A wiki is the Lab's first project, and it's being populated with definitions, guides, research, and lists of tools. The tools section links to Judith Meskill's Social Networking Services Meta List, which has nine categories of services, many links as well as many comments suggesting links that Judith didn't include – and that's just one kind of social software. Social software is the future (and probably the past and present) of the Internet.

Thanks for posting this, Jon!

Posted by: Alex Steffen on December 22, 2004 10:50 AM