Authors:Rantanen, Tommi (2007).Download file: 'University 2.0: Enhancing communication and collaboration in universities' - Executive Summary Report, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland.

Description

Social software, commonly known as the Web 2.0, is probably going to generate most of the information technology innovation in the future. The development is going to be fierce; it's hard to speculate what the possibilities will be in ten years.

Hardware, on the other hand, is already so evolved, that its development is easy to predict. Major research has to be made before new hardware innovation can be introduced to the public. The enhancements that new hardware and traditional software development are going to bring are mostly speed, performance and graphics updates; nothing revolutionary. However, computer processing is becoming so powerful that traditional desktop tasks can be moved to centralized super computers, which are accessed and controlled through the Web. Applications moving to the Web increase also the momentum of Web 2.0 applications, from which some of the most popular ones are presented in Table 1. Social software is quite the opposite of traditional information technology software. Social software is all about simplicity, effectiveness and communication. Green & Pearson (2005) defines social software as “various, loosely connected types of application that allow individuals to communicate with one another, and to track discussion across the Web as they happen” and it “is based on supporting the desire of individuals to be pulled into groups to achieve personal goals”. Most of the innovation today is not made in actual code based development, but by realizing more efficient ways to communicate and thereby collaborate. Social software is interesting, because every new user is automatically improving it. For example, Wikipedia and Facebook improve when people use it and create more content. Because users create an enormous amount of linkages between information, the contents of the Web are becoming more folksonomicly categorized.