Scoping "Social Tools": "Social tools (or software, technologies) are fundamentally the tools dedicated to helping people be social. Tools for instant messaging, blogging, emailing, social networking, photo-sharing are all tools to help people be social."
Comment: The social tools are the core of what I envision to be alternatives to LMS. When content is viewed as the most valuable contribution to learning...and LMS will suffice. When interaction and connections are viewed as the most valuable aspect of learning, then social tools (connected, but specialized) are the logical choice. The problem with this, however, is that many social tools still look quite amateur...and while often built on open standards, they are too complex to allow an average person to connect and link with other tools. For all my praise of social tools, end-user friendliness (for making connections) seems to be the fatal weakness. It's easy enough to set up a bloglines/flickr/del.icio.us/blogger account. Getting them to all play together nicely is beyond the skill level of most.