(2003-08-20) Thread Sociologist

Interview with Microsoft Sociologist Marc Smith. Microsoft has a big investment in online communities, and has not had until recently many tools to enhance that investment. What Microsoft wants around communities is what every enterprise does, which is a Peer Support, Knowledge Management application... What we are about is the thread. It turns out that the core sociological data type of the Internet is not IP (Internet Protocol) numbers, or any of that stuff, it's threaded conversations. (ThreadsML, Social Software)