Page "Collaborative software" Paragraph 3

Collaborative software is a broad concept that greatly overlaps with Computer-supported cooperative work ( CSCW ).

Some authors argue they are equivalent.

According to Carstensen and Schmidt ( 1999 ) groupware is part of CSCW.

The authors claim that CSCW, and thereby groupware addresses " how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems ".

Software products such as email, calendaring, text chat, wiki, and bookmarking belong to this category, whenever used for group work, whereas the more general term social software applies to systems used outside the workplace, for example, online dating services and social networking sites like Friendster, Twitter and Facebook.

It has been suggested that Metcalfe's law — the more people who use something, the more valuable it becomes — applies to these types of software.