Understanding social machines

Abstract

The Web is an evolving, complex socio-technical system. As a social technology, the Web is a diverse collection of interacting networks of activities and communities. The openness and scalability of the Web has provided a platform for new technologies, services and standards, enabling individuals at scale to connect, communicate and share in ways that were previously impractical. The Web has enabled new forms of activity to emerge and grow, a new area of Web activity is the development of social computing and social machines. This new area of activity harnesses the power of the crowd to perform computationally difficult and time consuming tasks. © 2012 IEEE.