SOCIAL COMPUTING

• It refers to things like wikipedia, newsgroups, messageboards, email lists , blogs, the web itself etc. In such fora, a lot of value is "collectively constructed" by many users.

• A major job in social computing is to identify "ecosystems" in online communities. What kind of people tend to pipe up with useful answers, in a newsgroup, how information spreads through blogs and wikis, are just two examples of questions which social computing tries to answer.

VIRTUAL WORLDS

Virtual worlds ( VW) represent the next generation of internet applications. they have enormous potential for changing business and lifestyles. VW will enable new kinds of interactive comerce, collaboration and entertainment. Just as it is impossible to exist today without an email id in real life, in the coming years it might become impossible to exist without a virtual identity in VW environment.

"Second life" is the most widely known virtual world. To read more on this topic click on the link below :

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Todays_Features/Networked/Virtual_Worlds_The_Future_Life/articleshow/2087908.cms