The way I perceive it is that both Social Networking and Search Science would go through the same life cycle as other computing technologies like databases, operating systems.
When the industry felt the need to have a database or OS they developed software and then realized the shortcomings.
They invested heavily on research in universities which caused BSD and other projects delivered which found their way into commercial usage.
The use cases faced by the industry coupled with the research at universities concluded that there are certain axiomatic concepts which must be taught in engineering colleges and we had these courses finding their way to our curriculum and C/C++ which was earlier taught in engineering is now taught in school.
Finally we do have continued research in databases and os but it is focussed on addressing specific problems.
Similarly when the concepts relating to Social Networking and Web Search stabilize, it is inevitable that they will be taught in colleges and the research community will find something more exotic and yet unknown to mull over.
Did I sound philosophical?
Not philosphical, but it makes more sense to compare "Social Networking" as a CS subject to "User Interface Design" or "Human Computer Interaction".
ReplyDeleteThe theory behind OS and DBMS have technical base.