Taron Lu

What does social computing do? How social computing came to be?

Have you asked yourself “what is social computing”, “what does it do” or “why people use it”? Well today I am going to answer all those questions for you using the causal model for social computing.  

First lets understand what social computing is, humans live in groups because they rely on others to obtain resources and other things they want. Social computing uses this concept but with modern technology. Lets use Ebay as a example, according to the causal model Ebay uses the technology web 2.0 in order to create the application. The application can be understood as the communication medium between the users and staff. 

Application characteristics is the qualities the application offers so content sharing gives the users information they want, aggregated knowledge is knowledge that is aggregated over time e.g. the rating of a certain item in a Ebay is rated for its quality and sellers are rated for their legitimacy. Business transactions allows the application to keep running as if the application could not generate money then there is no motivation for the people to keep working on an application. 

Emergent characteristics are the feelings that can be given through the application characteristics for example, aggregated knowledge generates trust for both buyers and sellers in Ebay while business transactions creates motivation for users to continue using the application and staff to continue developing the application.

Emergent characteristics effect the users to make decisions while interacting with the application so if a seller’s reputation is bad then the user will not buy from them but if the seller’s reputation is positive then users will buy items from them.