“Social networking is the fastest-growing activity on Web 2.0–the shorthand term for the new user-centered Internet, where everyone publicly modifies everyone else’s work, whether it’s an encyclopedia entry or a photo album. The growth of social networking is astonishing, and it has spread to sites of all sizes, which are increasingly intertwined as platforms open (see “Who Owns Your Friends?”). Even small players are soaring.”

There are quite a few interesting stories on various Web 2.0 topics. Visit the table of contents to see what’s available.

“Does what’s on your desk reveal what’s on your mind? Do those pictures on your walls tell true tales about you? And is your favorite outfit about to give you away? For the last ten years psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected-and unplanned-ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it others, and interpret the world around us.”

Gosling and his colleagues and students have also been studying how people use and interpret information on social networking sites to make statements about themselves, with papers in ICWSM 1007 and 2008.

You can also hear a 30 minute interview with Gosling on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

(h/t Natalie Glance)

The UMBC team is lead by Tim Finin, and includes several of us. The other participants are UIUC (led by Jiawei Han), Purdue (led by Elisa Bertino),  UTSA (led by Ravi Sandhu), UTDallas (led by Bhavani Thurasingham), Michigan (Lada Adamic).