Social Software

Social software lets people rendezvous, connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. The term came into more common usage in 2002, largely credited to Clay Shirky who organized a "Social Software Summit" in November of that year. Shirky defines social software as "stuff that gets spammed."

The more specific term collaborative software applies to cooperative work systems. The study of computer-supported collaboration and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (the name of the major conference on these issues) are closely associated with the software design issues.

Examples

Blogs or Weblogs

Blogs, short for web logs, are like online journals for a particular person. The owner will post a message periodically allowing others to comment. Topics often include the owner's daily life or views on politics or a particular subject important to them. There are many websites that address the history of blogs, like The History of Weblogs and weblogs: a history and perspective.

Blogs mean many things to different people: ranging from "online journal" to "easily updated personal website." While these definitions are not wrong, they fail to capture the power of blogs as social software. Beyond being a simple homepage, or an online diary, some blogs also allow comments on the entries thereby a discussion forum, have blogrolls, i.e., links to other blogs which the owner reads, and/or have trackback which allows one blog to notify another blog, creating an inter-blog conversation. In summary, blogs engage readers and build a virtual community around a particular person or interest. Examples include Slashdot, LiveJournal, BlogSpot

Wiki

Examples include the original Portland Pattern Repository wiki, MeatballWiki, CommunityWiki, and possibly Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource. The status of Wikipedia and related projects as "true" Wikis or as "typical" wikis has been questioned.

Social Network Services

Social network services allow people to come together online around shared interests or causes. For example, some sites provide dating services where users will post their personal profiles, location, age, gender, etc, and are able to search for a partner. Examples include ArtBoom, Orkut, Friendster, Linkedin, Tribe Networks, Freecycle Network, 24eyesand Cybersocieties.

Realtime Social Networks

A hybrid of the web-based social networks and instant messaging technologies, realtime social networks have recently emerged and are beginning to take both shape and popularity. Some examples of this include Imeem, which allows users to share blogs, files and instant messages, which creates a social network dynamically, in realtime, depending on where the user is currently located.

Social Bookmarking

Some sites allow users to post their list of bookmarks—or favorite websites—for others to search and view. The object is for people to meet others with whom they share a common interest. Examples include blinklist, del.icio.us, furl, Spurl.net, and Connectedy.

Collaborative Real-time Editing

Simultaneous editing of a text or media file by different participants from different internet-accounts.

Virtual Worlds or Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Virtual worlds and Massively shared online games are places where it is possible to meet and interact with some other human in an virtual world which usually looks like the reality. Some popular applications are Second Life, The Sims Online, There. A recent free software and open-source initiative is Solipsis.

via [ BlogCircles ] tags blogcircles, blog circles / blogcircles

Comments

[Mike]

I came across a great review of social bookmarking. One of the things that they focus on is that "social bookmarking" is not so much about the "bookmarking" as it is about "social learning" and "social knowlwedge sharing."

I thought that was pointing out, since that could become an important area for social software.

Here is the link to the review:
http://blendededu.com/2005/07/blinklist-learning-in-blink-of-eye.html