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The paper attempts to reflect on user empowerment enabled by three contemporary approaches, namely living labs, open innovation and social computing, as innovation instruments for innovating products and services based on next generation networks (NGNs).

The paper takes the form of a literature review, with limited environmental scanning of web sources, industry news, etc.

User‐centric services can be a catalyst for promoting future service ecosystems over NGN. Open strategies may prove to be profitable avenues for incumbents who may consider the extension of the market from access services into value added services. The living lab perspective, used as an approach of developing NGNs, introduces the opportunity to open new markets in new regions where new products and services can be tested and deployed. Living labs can also be used to go beyond the current “launch‐and‐learn” approach in online social communities to active end‐user participation in the online communities' development process. NGNs may be particularly useful for social computing, by offering incentives to create novel services that are fully created, developed and deployed by users.

This paper argues that user‐led innovation could be a significant paradigm shift for innovating products and services, particularly in the specific context of NGNs. It argues that this focus is lacking today, with most of the attention on specific NGN technology and infrastructure issues.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the main implications for innovation and competitiveness of social computing trends that promote swift social and economic relations. They are increasingly being considered by policymakers, both as tool and object for policymaking (i.e. how social computing could play a role in information society policies). Therefore, a general issue for the paper is represented by the lessons to be learned in terms of policy‐related consequences for Europe.

The paper is based on an extensive desk‐based survey of secondary data available from reports, studies and most recent statistics, from internet audience measurement companies, international research companies, research projects of non‐profit centers, international firms or the industry itself.

The diffusion and usage of social computing applications have been growing at an exponential rate. A powerful feature emerges, i.e. the new user as supplier, co‐producer or innovator of the service. New areas of innovation lie at the crossroads of an increasingly complex process of both tacit and codified knowledge production. They affect the way people find information, learn, share, communicate and consume and the way business is done. New players and markets provide significant threats and opportunities for the ICT and media industries. New players have a smaller cost base, viable business models and a real market.

Comparative and systematic research of the fast growing social computing trends is needed over longer periods of time.

The paper provides the first evidence on the size and weight of these trends, as well as on their social and economic relevance. It raises the need for more research, e.g. on the areas that would be most impacted and to what extent, as well as a wealth of policy‐related research questions.

Since social computing is an emerging phenomenon, the work is innovative and novel because it attempts to draw a first solid overall picture of the development of these trends.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the policy tools to complement public involvement and public‐private collaboration in the deployment of next generation electronic communications infrastructures.

The special issue, of which this paper is a part, examines a number of policy tools that support public involvement and enhance public‐private partnering in next generation infrastructures, tools that are generally overlooked. The papers explore the main domains where these complementary actions might take place. They encompass policies directed to the demand and supply sides of the market, information society and industrial innovation policies, additional measures that can be taken by local and regional public administrations and new policy tools to foster user empowerment.

From the authors' perspective, public involvement and public‐private partnering for the deployment of next generation infrastructures in telecommunications will require an integrated policy approach. The appropriate policy mix includes instruments of innovation, information society development and new user empowerment.

This paper introduces a timely contribution to the debate on public support of next generation infrastructures in electronic communications.