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September 17, 2008 11:29 AM PDT

IBM opens 'social software' development center

by Caroline McCarthy
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IBM

Longtime tech mainstay IBM has announced the creation of a Cambridge, Mass.-based research center for the development of "social software," from consumer Web apps to enterprise communication tools. At its launch, researchers from Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters' health care division have agreed to be "corporate residents" in the facility.

The IBM Center for Social Software, according to a release, will take on the lofty task of "creat(ing) a new type of collaborative environment to tackle some of the toughest questions about social software, identify new business models, help discover next-generation Web 2.0 applications, and determine how and why people form viral communities and the implications they have on our daily lives."

IBM plans to collaborate with government agencies, businesses, universities, and other research institutions, and the venture capital community on future Center for Social Software projects. Partners can send employees to the facility to work with IBM's researchers on anything from internal networks at businesses to social search and discovery or cloud computing.

"Center for Social Software is a channel for the social computing community and our customers to collaborate on the most innovative social technologies being developed today," IBM fellow and Irene Greif, who will serve as the facility's director, said in a release Wednesday. "We view the center as a magnet for the top social computing scientists around the world to visit, share work and innovate."

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About The Social

CNET News' Caroline McCarthy is a downtown Manhattanite who believes that, despite popular opinion, the Web can actually help your social life. She's happily addicted to fun social-media tools from Twitter to Yelp to Facebook, sends an inordinate number of text messages, and has a tendency to waste time at the office reading restaurant blogs. Here, she explores all facets of the Web's gregarious side, as well as the unique tech culture in her home city of New York. (Don't call it Silicon Alley.)

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