BMIS 2593 - Current Topics in MIS: The Business of Blogs, Online Communities, and Social Computing

From Information Systems at Pitt Business

The Business of Blogs, Online Communities and Social Computing
BMIS 2593
Credits:	1.5
Prerequisites:	none

Over the past five years, social computing technologies, such as online communities, blogs, wikis, content management tools, and social networking systems, have moved from being technical curiosities to being tools used in mainstream business practice. Across a variety of industries, firms are increasingly considering how they can use and profit from the development of social computing systems. However, the distinctive nature of these systems gives rise to many issues different from those encountered when developing and deploying traditional information technologies.

In this Current Topics in MIS course, we will examine issues associated with business use of social computing technologies. Through a combination of readings, discussion, presentations, and hands-on projects we will examine (i) the characteristics of key social computing technologies (including, but not limited to, blogs, wikis, content management systems (CMS), and social network systems), (ii) the nature of online communities and development processes for creating them, (iii) the business models underlying successful social computing ventures such as Myspace.com, YouTube.com, and Flickr.com, and (iv) approaches used by other firms to evaluate, apply, and manage these technologies within their organizations.