Structural and Behavioural Models for Social Computing Applications

Abstract: Social Computing, a new computing paradigm is causing transformational changes to societal and business processes resulting in new businesses models known as sharing economy, peer economy or collaborative consumption. Diffusion rates of these Social Computing applications have surpassed historical technological advancements and have reached millions and billions of users during a very short span of time. To understand this phenomenon we have analysed eight such popular applications using inductive content analysis techniques which have helped us derive a structural and a behavioural model for Social Computing. Using these two models we were able to get a deeper understanding of how an application designed to assist a particular communication pattern give rise to emergent characteristics within the user such as trust, empowerment, belongingness that motivate user to act to fulfil a need causing the growth of these applications. This understanding can guide the design of new successful Social Computing applications.