A good overview of social software, where it's come from and where it might be going in "Smarter, Simpler, Social" from Lee Bryant at Headshift. Lee covers some of the background leading to the concept of social software and then points towards a social methodology.
He summarises the key design goals of social software as:
Smarter
- XML/RDF/RSS syndication technologies
- Distributed, collaborative metadata
- Ontology development and the Semantic Web
- Adaptive design and context-awareness
Simpler
- Smaller, modular software with common methods and properties
- Web services and shared protocols
- Usability and ‘unfinished’ user experience design
- Shared and open source code
Social
- In the way it is conceived: stakeholder engagement, inclusive process
- In the way it is built: collaborative development, partnership
- In what it does: augments social networking; weblogs, wikis, messaging, etc.
- In how it works: adaptive qualities, personalisation, agent technologies, etc.
I've spent a lot of time working with Lee and his partner, Livio Hughes, over the last year or so and I respect their thinking. I'm very interested to see where they're going with their new company.
11:43:53 PM 
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