Social software continues to be of interest and to proliferate. Seb Paquet, Joi Ito,Ross Mayfield, and the group SocialText(Ross Mayfield and Peter Kaminski, among quite a few others (see, for example the list at the end of this listing, are following and 'working' the topic.

Also, the TopicExchange has a strand("channel") devoted to the subject of social software. RSS 2.0 subscriptions are available.

Several of Ross' entries caught my eye:

-An article derived from S Paquet's recent survey which shows that users of weblogs and wiki's have differing degrees of technology comfort.

-A pass along article from Matt Webb with discussion of subclasses of social software processes.

-and two articles, on the Social Software Alliance, a lead article here and a follow-up here. Excerpts from their summary statement:

PURPOSE AND SCOPE

We propose a trade group of social software developers and other interested parties who work together to create and promote open standards for the social software community. Social software blends tools and modes for richer online social environments and experiences. Some examples of social software are weblogs, wikis, forums, chat environments, or instant messaging, and related tools and data structures for identity, integration, interchange and analysis.

Social software is a dynamic and constantly evolving environment, rich with possibilities to create better connections between people. With a growing number of active developers, we need a central nexus to help drive the process of coordination and interoperability between different developers' products.

The alliance will:

* aid discovery of developers working on synergistic projects and standards * assist in shaping open standards that mesh well with other alliance and Internet standards * help promote each standard to gain wider adoption

The fast-paced nature of the social software space now argues for developing light-weight, easy-to-implement standards, following the Internet tradition of rough consensus and running code, but perhaps moving faster than the larger standards bodies. It is expected that those standards promulgated by the alliance which become widely adopted will be proposed to the appropriate general standards body or bodies: W3C, IETF, ISO, etc.

Also... there's quite a list of capable founding members:

Danny Ayers ,Ideagraph

Stewart Butterfield ,Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd.

Marc Canter , Broadband Mechanics Inc.

Ward Cunningham ,Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc.

Greg Elin

Noah Glass ,Listenlab, LLC

Mark Graham , iVillage

Meg Hourihan ,Co-founder & Director, The Lafayette Project

Peter Kaminski , Socialtext Inc.

Elizabeth Lawley , Rochester Institute of Technology

Jon Lebkowsky , Polycot Consulting

Kevin Marks , mediAgora

Ross Mayfield ,Socialtext Inc.

Matt Mower ,Novissio Ltd.

Mitch Ratcliffe , Internet/Media Strategies Inc.

Clay Shirky

Benjamin Trott , Six Apart Ltd.

Mena Trott , Six Apart Ltd.

Paolo Valdemarin,Evectors Software

David Weinberger ,Writer

Nancy White, Full Circle Associates