Social Media SIB Council (SIB-SM)

Keywords:

Web 2.0; User Generated Content; Community;

Scope:

Social Media is emerging as “the new way” to communicate to masses. It exploits the human need for social interactions, together with modern Web 2.0 technologies in order to foster a culture of participation.

The scope of Social Media SIB is to bring together the many practitioners utilizing social media in their daily activities, and to stimulate an open discussion on its future use and on how to maximally exploit the many opportunities coming from this emerging media channel.

Key-Challenges:

• To address the ethical issues related to a free generation, sharing and consumption of content
• To address the technological issues deriving from the proliferation of a many heterogeneous social media tools
• To analyze the privacy issues deriving from the daily use of social media instruments
• To discuss innovative and creative ways in which social media can be utilized
• To define the enabling technologies of future social media tools

Mission:

The evolution of the Internet into its next phase will create a profound transformation in society, affecting the way people relate with technology as a collectively and as individuals. In this new context, the traditional means of people to interact with other people and with information will be surpassed by new communication affordances (like rich media anytime, anywhere, information management of trillions of data from the physical and virtual worlds) and a major breakthrough in interactive systems will be required in order to fully exploit the new possibilities that the Future Internet will bring. Social media are expected to play a central role in such evolution, providing innovative and creative ways of utilizing Future Internet technologies and influencing the directions it will take.

The mission of the Social Media SIB is to congregate scientists, developers and daily practitioners to share their views on the future technologies and applications of social media technologies, and to promote its adoption in creative yet effective ways, positively contributing to the enrichment, both economic and cultural, of our societies.

Description:

“Social media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques” [Wikipedia]. Originally conceived for entertainment purposes, social media are drastically changing the way information is generated, shared and consumed in everyday life, with a major impact in the people’s habits to communicate. It exploits the human need for social interactions, together with modern Web 2.0 technologies in order to foster a culture of participation. The key principle guiding any social media is the willingness of users to share experiences with other members socially close. Such sharing of experiences becomes a driving principle for identifying people as members of a given community, while, at the same time, empower them in the definition of its identity.

This major trend is confirmed by the many and different contexts to which social media tools are applied. As an example, they are used as a mean to share knowledge inside enterprise organizations, as well as a communication tool for grass root movements. Further, social media are now part of any major marketing campaign due to their stunning reach.

The main activity of the SIB is to congregate scientists, developers and daily practitioners to share their views on the future technologies and applications of social media. This will include aspects related to technology, as well as ethical issues arising from the sharing and management of personal data. From a technological standpoint, the SIB will stimulate the discussion among experienced entrepreneurs, researchers and technologists, with the aim of identifying the most promising directions to be followed by social media technologies. Data management will a second aspects addressed in this SIB. This will involve regulatory bodies, end users and industrial players operating in this sector. The discussion will address the ethical and privacy implications deriving from the management of the huge amount data generated by users.