Nice simple explanation of social computing

Think of social computing as a platform upon which people can collaborate in ad hoc groups, where they can share their expertise with others, possibly strangers, and where the by-products of their activities automatically add to the wealth of retained corporate knowledge. Sounds like knowledge management doesn't it? Well, it's not. There's none of the coercive aspects of that particular discipline. And, before you ask, it's much more free-form and less centrally-directed than groupware. In fact, social computing is a curious mix of top-down initiation and bottom-up implementation.