social software: the building blocks of online communities imke csc2006 kaido kikkas
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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