With the rapid development and wide applications of Internet, more and more people are attracted to be a Web user and spend a lot of time online everyday. For example, there are about 338 million network users in China by the end of June 2009 according to the latest CNNIC report. Half year ago, this number was only 298 million. Without question, Web has already created a big virtual world for many people. Although quite different, the World Wide Web still shares many similarities with the real human society and does not exist without participation of human people and organizations. In order to better understand Web society and thus help people use its applications more effectively, it is very necessary to learn more about it. For example, What are the characteristics/personalities of Web users? How do people behave on the Web? How do people search on the Web? Can we identify their intention when they are searching? How can the web behavior and interactions to be understood? And how can we design the Web of the future to ensure that it remains stable and pro-human? All these challenges require the understanding of both human personalities and their behavior on the Web.

The Web society is a new research field which attracts much attention of not only computer scientists, psychologists, but also social scientists, etc. The aim of this symposium is to bring scholars from different research areas together to explore and discuss the development of Web. We welcome papers from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, including computer science, sociology, psychology, economics, health, etc. Papers which incorporate more than one discipline will be particularly welcomed. We have identified the following areas for particular attention (but not limited to):

* Web 2.0
* e-Therapy
* Web Behavior Analysis
* Future Web applications
* Web Society Infrastructure
* User Modeling and data mining
* Web Search and Information Retrieve

Track: Theory and Applications in Social Computing

Social Computing can be broadly defined as computational facilitation of social studies and human social dynamics as well as design and use of information and communication technologies that consider social context. Social computing -- including online communities, social networking, and user contributed content -- is the force behind Web 2.0 applications which related to recommender systems, reputation systems, prediction markets, social network analysis, online communities, and computer-supported cooperative work. The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Web and Society provides a key forum for researchers and industry practitioners to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of art and practice of social computing. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

* Theory foundation in Social Computing
* Social Behavior Modeling, Social Intelligence, Social Cognition
* Emotional Intelligence, Intention Detection, Cultural Dynamics, Opinion Representation, Influence Process
* Data Mining, Machine Learning, Information Retrieval, Artificial Intelligence in Social Contexts
* Trust, Privacy, Risk and Security in Social Contexts



Track: Study of Online Social Relations

A new kind of online social relation with the basic feature of body absent has been shaped by the rise of new media represented with internet. The rise of the "social networking", the emergence of social network site (SNS) and microblog, the applications of 3G network, the connection between communication networks and internet, and their potential of establishing, maintaining, expanding or harming interpersonal relation have all become focuses of social science. Will the structure of online social relation promote or damage interpersonal relation? What are the differences between online and real social relation? What are the effects of online social relation to the real one? Will the online social relation lead to privacy infringement? How to construct trust in the online social relation? All these questions have become concerns of the public. In order to deepen the social science research in this field, we plan to carry on the interdisciplinary discussion themed at ?online social relations? in SWS2010. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

* The structure and pattern of online social relation
* The effects of the online social relation to the real social relation
* Online social relation and privacy
* Online social relation and social trust
* SNS and online social relation
* Mricoblog and online social relation
* Online social relation and social capital



Track: Web Search and Mining

Web search and mining is still at the forefront of Web applications, and has gained importance far beyond simple information acquisition. Indeed, search is not only the most frequent application executed on the Web, it has also found its way into other platforms for organizing large collections of items or information. Moreover, search is the base of online advertising and hence the primary vehicle for creating revenues for many companies.

The Web Search and Mining is intended to capture the research activities that involve or focus on Web search and mining. We therefore welcome papers delivering original research relevant to the various aspects of search and mining, including, but not limited to:

* Web information retrieval and search (e.g., link analysis, query logs, social tagging, social network analysis, advertising and search, blog search, forum search, CQA, adversarial IR)
* Information retrieval models and ranking (e.g., IR theory, language models, probabilistic retrieval models, feature-based models, learning to rank, combining searches, diversity)
* Web data mining (Web document mining, web graph mining, query log mining, Web usage mining, Web log mining, etc.) - Other novel applications (e.g., digital libraries, enterprise search, vertical search, genomics IR, legal IR, patent search, text reuse)
* Parallel/distributed Web search or mining



Track: Multimedia Information Indexing, Filtering, and Mining

Since 20th century, multimedia information including signal, image, and video has given deeper and deeper impact on human society. Especially during the last decade, with the rapid development of web applications, people experienced a great change in daily life-style and now involve in a multimedia world everyday and everywhere, from Google Image, Youtube to iTunes music store, from digital camera to video communicator. WWW has not only connected billions of computers and other digital multimedia devices, but also linked human users through them together. These changes also increase many interesting research topics. For example, how to more easily and effectively search desirable multimedia information online? How to prevent multimedia information with erotic and violent content from being accessed by teenagers? How to automatically classify and label mass multimedia data? How to mine user preference by analyzing multimedia accessing records? Undoubtedly, a lot of research efforts are still needed to make Web multimedia information more easily being found and utilized by human. This track is set up by SWS2010 for researchers in the related areas to share the state-of-the-art techniques. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

* Multimedia information indexing
* Multimedia content analysis
* Multimedia data mining
* Web multimedia applications
* Web 2.0 and multimedia



Track: The Human behavior of Mixed Network Users

Nowadays, more and more people use mixed network, which includes TV, computer, mobile telephone and so on. And according to the statistics by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of PRC until Sep.2009, the number of mobile users in China rises above 720 million, and the number of network users is about 338 million. Furthermore, it becomes much more commonplace that using mixed network can obtain and share information. So, to some extent, it may be concluded that people's behavior is influenced by the mixed network. However, there are still some problems needing to be figured out. For instance, what are the mixed network users concerns? And what topic can attract them? What is the reason of internet addiction? How to organize the Wap content to gain high click rate? Analyzing human behavior of the mixed network users can redound Behavior of Mixed Network Users is intended to capture the research activities that involve or focus on e-commerce, internet addiction, mobile communication and Wap computing. Therefore, we welcome papers delivering original research relevant to the various aspects of mixed network. Potential topics include but not limited to:

* Mobile communication (e.g., information sharing, Wap content delivery)
* Internet behavior (e.g., online behavior, internet addiction, e-commerce, etc )
* Behavior analysis (e.g., short message hot words, mainstream color message analysis, hot mobile video of demand)
* Other novel applications (e.g., mobile P2P, the cell phone based-on IP)
* Mobile/embedded computing



Track: The Role of Information and information Technology in Crisis Management

Information and information technology plays a major role in great crisis event and disposal, including information related to mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery in crisis management cycle, and information technology related to network technology, satellite monitoring, global position system, remote sensing technology, and their international advanced management methods. The application in the field of crisis management greatly improved management performance. This session will focus on discussing the relationship between information and crisis management, information technology and crisis management, to promote the application of information and information technology in crisis management. Some topics:

* Information preparedness system in crisis management
* Risk map building and crisis management planning
* Information architecture supporting crisis management
* Methodology of crisis information monitoring and analysis
* Application of information technologies in crisis management