Guest Editors´ Introduction: Social Computing

Broadly stated, social computing takes a computational approach to the study and modeling of social interactions and communications. It also encompasses the development of technologies supporting these interactions. In recent years, we´ve seen social computing impact numerous information and communications technology (ICT) fields. It´s attracted significant interest from not only researchers in the computing and social sciences but also software and online game vendors, Web entrepreneurs, political analysts, and digital-government practitioners, among others. This special issue samples the state of the art social-computing research from several perspectives: the overall paradigm of social-computing research; technological support for social-computing applications; cognitive modeling and architecture of agents and agent societies; and social-computing applications in areas such as terrorist network analysis, competitive business strategies, and agent behavior in financial markets. This article is part of a special issue on social computing.