Editing Social web (section)

===Collaborative efforts facilitated by the social web===

====Crowdsourcing====
{{Main|Crowdsourcing}}

Crowdsourcing has become one of the ways in which the social Web can be used collaborative efforts, particularly in the last few years, with the dawn of the [[semantic web]] and Web 2.0.  Modern web applications have the capabilities for crowdsourcing techniques, and consequently the term is now used exclusively for web-based activity.  Examples include sites such as SurveyMonkey.com and SurveyU.com; for example, SurveyMonkey enables users to administer surveys to a list of contacts they manage, then collect and analyze response data using basic tools provided on the website itself and finally export these results once they are finished.<ref>{{cite web|title=SurveyMonkey User Manual|url=http://s3.amazonaws.com/SurveyMonkeyFiles/UserManual.pdf|work=User Manual|access-date=2011-06-08}}</ref>

Crowdsourcing is used by researchers in order to emulate a traditional [[focus group]], but in a less expensive and less intimate atmosphere.
Due to the nature of the social Web, people feel more open to express what their thoughts are on the topic of discussion without feeling as though they will be as heavy scrutinized by the rest of the group when compared to a traditional setting.  The Internet serves as a screen, helping to evoke the purest feedback from the participants in the group, as it removes much of a [[mob mentality]].<ref>{{cite magazine|author=Leah DeVun |url=https://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/crowd_captain?currentPage=all |title=Wired News. Web. 19 Nov. 2009 |magazine=Wired |publisher=Wired.com |date=2007-05-10 |access-date=2011-10-20|author-link = Leah DeVun}}</ref>

Facebook has also been a mode in which crowdsourcing can occur, as users typically ask a question in their status message hoping those that see it on his or her news feed will answer the question, or users may opt to use the poll option now available to obtain information from those within their friends network.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=411795942130 |title=Searching for Answers? Ask Facebook Questions |publisher=Facebook |access-date=2011-10-20}}</ref>

====Community-based software projects====

Through the use of the social Web, many software developers opt to participate in community-based [[open-source software]] projects, as well as hacking projects for [[proprietary software]], [[kernel (operating system)|kernel (computing)]] modifications, and [[freeware]] ports of games and software. [[Linux]] iterations are perfect examples of how effective and efficient this sort of collaboration can be.  Google's [[Android (operating system)|Android operating system]] is another example, as many coders work on modifying existing hardware kernels and ROMs to create customized forms of a released Android version. These collaborative efforts for Android take place typically through [[xda-developers]] and androidforums.com.