The mission of the Social Web Incubator Group, part of the Incubator Activity, is to understand the systems and technologies that permit the description and identification of people, groups, organizations, and user-generated content in extensible and privacy-respecting ways.
See the charter for more information.
As a W3C Incubator group, our primary responsibility is to produce a final report summarizing our discussions with other groups, and propose a way forward for the W3C to participate productively in the wider Social Web ecosystem. In particular, we will survey the landscape for community-driven standards that in the future may be interested in W3C standardization, and how current W3C standards or Recommendation track work should take into account wider Social Web initiatives from outside the W3C.
We are a public and open body, and our work is done on a wiki and a public mailing list anyone can join if they can agree to the W3C Royalty-Free patent policy as to not recommend patented work for future W3C standardization. In order to conform with the W3C royalty-free patent policy and to prevent spam, in access the wiki, you have be a member of the W3C XG. See how to join. We also have a member-only mailing list, which is only used when discussing text of the deliverables, but which we will copy the public list. By copying to the member-list we preserve the commitment of members of the royalty-free patent policy when editing the actual text of deliverables.
Wiki: Most of our work happens on our wiki. The wiki is readable by the public, but in order to make sure all contributions are royalty free, only members can edit the wiki.
For aggregated updates: Visit the Planet Social.
Social Web Microblog: Just join the swxg! group on identi.ca.
For high-level updates: Check out the Last Week In W3C Social Web blog!
2009-11-04: Future of the Social Web Panel held at W3C TPAC (See W3C Announcement), see notes on wiki.
2009-11-02: Social Web XG Face to Face held at W3C TPAC (See W3C Announcement), see notes on wiki.
2009-04-29: Social Web Camp held at Sun Offices in San Jose
2009-04-29: Social Web Camp held at WWW2009 (See W3C Announcement), see notes on wiki.
2009-04-06: Initial W3C news release announcing the formation of Social Web.
W3C Advisory Committee Representatives may join this XG on behalf of their organizations by completing this online form. Non-Members may join W3C or ask the Chair of an Incubator Group to participate as an Invited Expert, subject to W3C's policy for approval of Invited Experts.
The Social Web XG is a public and open body, so anyone can join the Social Web XG as an Invited Expert as long as they can fulfill the W3C Royalty-Free Patent Policy requirements. While the Social Web XG is not creating or standardizing new technology, in our final report we are recommending technology for standardization by the W3C, and we only want to recommend technology that conforms to the W3C Royalty-Free Patent Policy.
Participants are automatically subscribed to the Member list when they join the group. Participants should also subscribe to the public list. Non-Participants may also subscribe. Please read more about W3C mailing list and archive usage.
In order to become an Invited Expert to the Social Web XG, just fill out the following two simple forms. The first gets you a W3C log-in, and the second is an agreement to W3C RF patent policy: