Latest Articles

Alexander McCall-Smith Engages Web 2.0

The Daily Telegraph is in the middle of a 20-week serialisation of an online book created by author Alexander McCall-Smith, his first such project. New Media Knowledge caught up with the organisers to discuss ‘Corduroy Mansions’.

more

Business Brief: Video Advertising Looks to Future

Google has announced it will incentivise advertisers on its video properties as well as launching research programmes into how Web users consume Internet video material. New Media Knowledge spoke to a number of industry players to gauge their views on where the video advertising market is going.

more

‘Virtual Home’ for Ex-Pats in London Established

A social network aimed at providing information for ex-pats living in London has been established. New Media Knowledge met the site’s co-founder to find out more.

more

• Rough Guide to: Social Media and the Law
• Record Visits for UK Blog Sites
• Clearing Congestion
• Rough Guide to: Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Opinion: What Happens to Newspapers?
• LinkedIn Adds Business Applications
• What Happens to Newspapers?

Related Articles

• Tourism 2.0

  African nations were urged this week to engage with new media to attract more visitors. New Media Knowledge looked for examples of new media success in the travel sector. more

• Social Network Counters Malaria

  Malaria affects approximately 515 million people each year and kills between one and three million, one-third of whom are children. Having had a close up view of the mosquito-based disease during a visit to Africa, a young British entrepreneur has created a social networking site that aims to fight it. more

• Advertising on Social Networks Ineffective

  New research into the effectiveness of different advertising mediums has revealed that advertising on social networks has had very little impact on consumers so far. more

• Social Networking in the UK

  Ofcom has revealed the findings of its research into the effect of social networks on British lives. Tim Hoang reports. more

• Facebook Offers Chat

  Facebook has officially launched its new chat application for the members of the social network. more

Selling Social Software

---

This evening seminar will chart the rise of social software and examine how these technologies might be employed in a commercial and business context.

This evening seminar will chart the rise of social software and examine how these technologies might be employed in a commercial and business context.

Blogs have put social software in the news again. Big players such as Google and AOL are buying into the technology, and they're not the only ones trying to find commercial applications for software that supports group interaction.

All pivotal internet technologies move from being the preserve of a small, committed, technically literate subculture towards mainstream cultural acceptance and commercial exploitation. With over a million users and rising, blogs are well on their way along this road.

But can social software realistically be employed to serve commercial ends - or does it, by its very nature, resist being harnessed in this way?

And if social software - such as weblogs, wikis, online networks and communities - does have a place in business, what is it? Could combinations of lightweight, readily available applications come to replace expensive corporate knowledge management systems and enterprise software, for example? Or introduce new business models for the publishing industry?

The presentations, questions and discussion will be followed by drinks and networking.

Speakers

Speakers include:

Will Davies, Senior Researcher, iSociety
William works in the research team at The Work Foundation on the iSociety programme. He specialises in social capital and network theory, social software, and the ways in which membership associations can benefit from these, in particular, unions and professional associations. In May 2003, he published an iSociety report, 'You Don't Know Me, But...: Social Capital and Social Software', exploring uses for the internet in supporting social networks. He was recently the lead contributor to a collection of essays, The Professionals Choice - The Future of the Built Environment Professions.

Lee Bryant, Director, Headshift (www.headshift.com)
Lee Bryant is a founding Director of Headshift - a specialist Internet consulting firm with a focus on the social impact of information and communication technologies. He has seven years experience of building and managing successful businesses in this sector, during which time he has managed a number of award-winning projects for both public and private sector organisations. He is passionate about using technology to facilitate self-representation, and has been programming computers since he was 10 years old. Lee is also the author of 'Smarter, Simpler, Social', a paper providing an overview of the development of social software.

Louise Ferguson, Digital Habitats (www.louiseferguson.com)
Louise Ferguson is a technologist and user experience consultant, with an academic background is in human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative working. She is on the board of the UK Usability Professionals' Association and co-leads the UPA's international voting and usability project. She has been involved in designing systems since she left university in the 1980s and has wide-ranging professional experience, from researching what environmental pressure groups and scientists want from oil company websites to conducting ethnographic research into employees' experience of collaborative systems in a range of public and private sector contexts. She takes a particular interest in how we can best make use of the "things that make us smart" or "cognition in the wild". Louise has recently launched her own firm, Digital Habitats.

Location

PSI Conference Centre

100 Park Village East, Camden Town, London NW1 3SR; nearest tube station: Mornington Crescent, nearest train station: Euston, busses: 24, 27, 29, 88, 134, 168, 253