Knowledge Sharing over Social Networking Systems: Architecture, Usage Patterns and Their Application.

The recent success of social networking sites like mySpace, Friendster, Orkut, LinkedIn, Ecademy and openBC indicates that extending one's social network through a virtual medium is a popular proposition. The social networking paradigm can be integrated with the knowledge management field, in which sharing knowledge with others is a central issue. This paper investigates how the social networking concept can be applied to support knowledge sharing between people. Together with common features in the architecture of social networking systems, a number of platform independent usage patterns are discussed that can support knowledge sharing between members. Finally, we present the open source KnoSoS system, which integrates the discussed architecture and usage patterns. Keywords: social networking, knowledge management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]