Social software: the building blocks of online communities

IMKE CSC2006Kaido Kikkas

Innovation or another buzzword?

IT 'magic words' through the ages: programming expert system multimedia e- (learning, banking, work etc) new media

Social software? Yes and no

Hard to define

Roughly overlapping with new media New communication technologies plus their

impact on human interaction and formation of virtual communities

Stowe Boyd: SoSo is the antithesis of groupware: traditional collaborative software approach – project-

based, 'top-down' social software approach – stemming from individual,

spontaneous, 'bottom-up'

Boyd's criteria

Support for conversational interaction between individuals or groups – incl. chance to determine the pace of interaction by choosing a suitable channel (see previous lecture)

Support for social feedback – E. S. Raymond and CatB: reputation as the basis (whether connected to the real identity or not). Sometimes can have direct financial influence

Support for social networks – reflects existing relationships and builds new ones. 6 degrees!

Matt Webb: 6 factors

identity: steady <= social capital (reputation) presence: awareness of others; state indicators relationships: friendship => privileges conversations: ct. messaging – cont. vs discrete reputation: objective or tradeable sharing: helping, community building, fame

Categories of social software

Today's Internet is not only a 'network of network' but a network of very diverse social applications

All the previously seen factors are evident, but the proportions vary a lot

Mailing lists

Among the oldest, sometimes not counted among social software proper

First attempts soon after 1972 Wider spread after the software arrived:

LISTSERV 1986 Majordomo 1992

Usenet

Probably one of the least known 1979 UUCP, 1985 NNTP (TCP/IP) - “Usenet is

not Internet” Network of news servers, each hosts a number of

newsgroups An article posted to one server is forwarded to

others A “pull” medium (ct. lists)

The Great 8

comp.*: computer-related discussions (comp.software, comp.sys.amiga)

misc.*: Miscellaneous topics (misc.education, misc.forsale, misc.kids)

news.*: Discussions and announcements about news (meaning Usenet, not current events) (news.groups, news.admin)

rec.*: Recreation and entertainment (rec.music, rec.arts.movies)

sci.*: Science related discussions (sci.psychology, sci.research)

soc.*: Social discussions (soc.college.org, soc.culture.african)

talk.*: Talk about various controversial topics (talk.religion, talk.politics, talk.origins)

humanities.*: Fine arts, literature, and philosophy (humanities.classics, humanities.design.misc)

Others

alt.* - informal, more freedom, specific groups alt.binaries.* - various files Regional and language groups Business groups

Web groups

Similar to the previous ones, but has a Web interface and users can choose the operation mode: purely web-based (like a web forum) like a newsgroup (messages are downloaded) like a mailing list (messages are mailed)

Big players: Yahoo!, Google, MSN

IRC

Internet Relay Chat , Jarkko Oikarinen 1988 Usenet-like server system, channels, text-based

communication Dynamic and informal (no logins) Was used during many international crises to

forward objective information

Talkers & chatrooms

Virtual spaces for real-time interaction First one 1984, the golden age were the 90s Layout often imitates reality Three-level conversation Telnet vs clients vs Web interface

IM

I Seek You => ICQ, 1995 MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Jabber Multi-protocol messengers:

Trillian GAIM

Web forums

Simpler than the web groups, but easier to maintain (more control locally) easier to build one's own

Lots of free/open-source packages: phpBB Slash PHP-Nuke ....

Blogs

Early ones: Tim Berners Lee, Justin Hall “Weblog” 1997 “We blog” 1999 The boom <== aggregation standards (RSS etc) Like IRC, have been used as free-speech tool Photo- and videoblogs

Podcasting

iPod + broadcasting – actually iPod was not needed

Audio blog or on-demand radio uses RSS to spread the content

Wiki

wiki <= “quickly”. “Wiki-wiki!” Ward Cunningham 1995 – WikiWikiWeb

everyone can edit editing is simple, no need for HTML

Wikipedia, NuPedia, GNUpedia Wider use Less open now, 'soft security' is not enough

Social bookmarking, tagging

First link repository: Yahoo! 1994 attempts during the dot-com boom del.icio.us – 1999

bookmarks + tags Tagging is superior to automatic metadata Technorati – blog search + tags Targetted advertising

Media sharing

Wild times – beginning of the 90s Mad times – end of the 90s New century brought some reason Flickr – photoes; many use CC licenses YouTube – Flash-based videos

community censorship large players start to reconsider their position

Online games

First MUDs - automatic AD&D 90s New century: MMORPG MUDs are still alive Pictures: ready-made vs DIY?

Social networking

Personal profiles + something else groups messaging ratings ...

MySpace, Friendster, Orkut... Various problems

Social shopping

Introduction of many SoSo features to online shops (especially Amazon.com)

Parallel with real life: shopping centres => entertainment facilities

Social citations

More scientific variant of social bookmarking – exact quotes and references are needed

Connotea, BibSonomy

Evolutionary computing

aka human-based computation specific parts of a problem are assigned to

different people, solutions are synthesized from answers

Google Answers, Yahoo! Answers, 3form.com

Virtual or real? Or both?

Clay Shirky's experiment: Real-life meeting online chat between people in the same room

Two-tier communication Ct. EUDORA LEARN IP 2006 Haapsalu Sometimes gives good results

Conclusions

SoSo is a crucial component in widening the influence of IT

Like all IT, changes rapidly Sometimes mixing real and virtual pays off