Unit Structures Fred Stutzman’s thoughts about information, social networks and technology.

IBM launches Center for Social Software

Some very interesting news – IBM has launched a Center for Social Software in Cambridge, MA.  According to IBM, the “goal of the IBM Center is to create 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 already has a great research presence in Cambridge, so this center is an exciting addition.

Unit Structures readers will be particularly interested in the corporate residency and internship opportunities.  According to Information Week, the corporate residency program offers businesses the opportunity to work with IBM researchers, with Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters the first participants.  Very cool stuff – Unit Structures looks at this program wistfully as he trudges along towards his dissertation.

[...] Microsoft describes the lab as “pursuing new, interdisciplinary areas of research that bring together core computer scientists and social scientists to understand, model, and enable the computing and online experiences of the future.”  This is great news for danah, a huge win for Microsoft, and another really exciting research center on the East Coast.  I’ll be keeping my eye on Microsoft and IBM. [...]