Virtual Technologies have enabled us all to become publishers and broadcasters. The world of information has become saturated with a multitude of opinions, and opportunities to express them. Track 2 "Virtual Technologies and Social Shaping" of the 9th Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC9) explores some of the issues that have arisen in this new information society, how we are shaped by it, and how we shape it, through i) two papers addressing issues of identity on social networks (Pearson and Burmeister), ii) two papers about the glut of information now available on the web and strategies for dealing with it (Lenarcic et al. and Westwood), and finally iii) a paper on the tricky problem of virtual property theft (Patterson et al.).