Although the use of HTML and early Web browsers expanded the Internet experience from mostly one-to-one interactions to that of one-to-many, this development still did not afford the sophisticated kinds of social interactions undertaken by people in the real world. Recently, however, new technologies (such as Weblogs, Web services, RSS/Atom, tagging with folksonomies, and Wikis - sometimes collectively called "Web 2.0") have appeared that offer more socially-oriented network interactions. This has led to the new system development mode of employing lightweight scripting languages to bundle various Web 2.0 elements, or plugins, and then deploying them on network servers, thereby establishing Social Network Systems (SNS). The physical nature of the new network architectures is increasingly heterogeneous, comprising more lightweight portable devices (cell phones and PDAs) interacting with ever-more powerful network servers that host SNS. From these developments have merged such popular services such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Flickr, and YouTube. But analysts and observers predict that SNS have much greater potential than merely exchanging media files:

these are expected to afford opportunities to meet and engage in extended, creative, and more meaningful (in fact, unforeseeable) interactions that will greatly enhance their Internet experiences. How can this vision be achieved?

An important new platform technology where all these developments come together is that of the new virtual environments, such as Second Life and There, which enable people to meet and engage in virtual, three-dimensional social interactions. The future of SNS will certainly be played out on these platforms.

The Key Issues: In all societies, whether electronic or real, there is a fundamental tension between freedom and rules. If the interaction rules of behaviour are too rigid, people feel constrained and leave the society. On the other hand, if interaction rules are too lax, aimless inhabitants become bored - plus the society can be overrun by vandals and free-riders. To address this concern we need to explore the following questions:

Topics of interest include:

* How can we facilitate effective structure in a SNS?

* How can we enable collaboration/cooperation in social networking

application areas such as education, e-commerce, world-wide

research etc?

* How can collective knowledge be constructed and shared?

* What is the role of network topologies (scale free, small world,

random) in the areas such as disease spreading, opinion dynamics, and norm spreading?

* How can we model the dynamic growth and shrinkage of online communities?

* How can software agents be used in the development and simulation of on-line societies?

* How can various Web 2.0 tools be integrated to satisfy the needs of electronic communities in a holistic manner?

* How can realistic virtual environments be modelled, designed and developed? What are the issues and solutions?

* How can high speed networks such as KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network, <