An interesting article by Stowe Boyd on social software, talking about what it is, what's the big deal and why now. Trying to answer the question of what social software is, he suggests three premises:
- Support for conversational interaction between individuals or groups
- Support for social feedback
- Support for social networks
And he concludes:
"Social software allows us to create new social groupings and then new sorts of social conventions arise. Kenneth Boulding, the economist, humanist and social scientist, once wrote: 'We make our tools, and then they shape us.' That is what social software is doing. It is changing the way that we socialize."
There's a lot of talk at the moment about what social software is and isn't, and whether or not it's a new thing. Very little of this really gets us anywhere. I'm not sure we can identify a particular class of software that's social software in the same way that we can identify word processing apps or content management systems. For me it's more about the usage - it's the social that's important, not the software - the software is just something that enables and mediates the social interaction. This blog runs on Radio, which is basically a lightweight CMS. There's nothing inherent in it that makes it social software or excludes it from being social software. It's a question of what it's being used for - which means, of course, that the same software may be social in one context and not in another.
I think this is part of what Stowe Boyd is getting at. What's interesting about social software is what it's doing in terms of the way we socialise. It allows us to extend social interactions and take them online in a way that more institutional solutions like groupware can't.
And why now? Boyd points to technology and money: low-cost, high bandwith tools and wider Internet access. Maybe. But certainly from my standpoint the interest was triggered by the failure of the first round of web applications to address social interaction in any meaningful way - and the impact that had on projects in the organisations I work with. During the dot.com boom there was an exuberant explosion of web-based software just because we could - it was playtime for the technologists and we built stuff because it was easy and because it was fun. We didn't always have a clear idea of where it might be going, but we had a heck of a time getting there (or maybe getting somewhere else we didn't expect - that was part of the thrill). But a lot of our so-called solutions just didn't cut it, or they were solutions to problems that the organisation didn't really have. We had the technology down and we weren't too shabby on the process - it was just the people we sometimes left out.
Turning things around and starting from the people not the technology has been the main spur for my interest in social software. And I don't think I'm alone in that. It's a penny that's dropped for a lot of people and is at least part of the reason that social software is a hot topic today.
As to whether or not it's new - who cares? Some of it is, some of it isn't - some is a new spin on old tools, some is taking what came before and co-opting it to the new slogan - some is simply re-invention or recognition of old wisdom from other fields. If the term "social software" helps to get across an important message about the priority of people and their social interactions, then it's doing it's job.
[Thanks to Clay Shirky.]
10:09:05 PM 
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