In the pub last night Matt Webb and myself discussed this subject area: it’s fuzziness and our frustrations with it. The best and most useful definition I have that we got to was:
“Social software = software that’s better because there’s people there”
[e.g. amazon, google, ebay, slashdot, and at a larger scale: the blogosphere and the web as a whole]
Ross Mayfield [who’s blog is a definite find for designers considering social software] has this as an attractive and useful definition of Social Software:
Seems to me there’s a lot of cross-over with the discussions and thoughts in the experience-design blogosphere about ‘adaptive design’ of the last couple of months.
At the moment, it seems to me, the discussion of social software is massively technocentric, seat’n’screen-centric, expert-user-centric; possibly as an innocent result of those in it’s vanguard. For a real great leap forward IMHO, we need to cross the streams of social software and smartmobs with adaptive design. Expand and map the discussion from:
software-that’s-better-cos-there’s-people-there
to
places-that-are better-for-people-cos-there’s-software-there;
and in both cases have the emphasis on people. I really want the time to try to expand on this, but I’m not counting on it.
“Person most likely”? = Fabio Sergio
Petafloptimism 
EG on face
Following both Simon and Max’s entries below, i thought i might try to boil up an EG. Apparently, the SIMs
Three is the magic number
The discussion on social software continues over at Black Belt Jones. This was my contribution (n = the number of
A lot going on
Big discussion on ‘Social Software’ over on Blackbeltjone’s blog, meanwhile the Chinese government is shutting down social software in China.
The Third Place
The social scientist Ray Oldenburg talks about how humans need a third place, besides work and home, to meet
Webloggers debate social software.
The discussion [each link in this paragraph is to a
Setting Definitions
Steiny’s guide to setting definitions
The excesses of “Social Software”
What is it about “Social Software” that is starting to worry me? Is it the abandonment of concepts of ‘online community’ and the complete rejection of familiar terms and paradigms like the message board? Is it the increasing lack of history? Or is it t…
My most linked-to article of 2003, part 1: Blogs Save Lives!
As part of my bid to win “Blog of the Year” in the 2004 Bloggies, I’m posting some extra goodies over the nex…
My most linked-to article of 2003, part 1: Blogs Save Lives!
As part of my bid to win “Blog of the Year” in the 2004 Bloggies, I’m posting some extra goodies over the nex…
‘Design dissolves in behaviour’
I’m getting the picture clearer in my head â¦Naoto Fukasawa:Good design means not leaving traces of the designer and not overworking the design. If you overdo the design, it will touch the beholder’s consciousness. I think that when people and