Social software
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Social software, also known as social apps or social platform, include communications and interactive tools that are often based on the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mechanics of conversation and talk. ''Social software'' generally refers to software that makes collaborative behaviour, the organisation and moulding of communities, self-expression, social interaction and feedback possible for individuals. Another element of the existing definition of ''social software'' is that it allows for the structured mediation of opinion between people, in a centralized or self-regulating manner. The most improved area for social software is that Web 2.0 applications can all promote cooperation between people and the creation of online communities more than ever before. The opportunities offered by social software are instant connection and the opportunity to learn.An additional defining feature of social software is that apart from interaction and collaboration, it aggregates the collective behaviour of its users, allowing not only crowds to learn from an individual but individuals to learn from the crowds as well. Hence, the interactions enabled by social software can be one-on-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.


Types


Instant messaging

An ''
instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...
'' application or
client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...
allows one to communicate with another person over a network in real time, in relative privacy. One can add friends to a contact or buddy list by entering the person's email address or messenger ID. If the person is online, their name will typically be listed as available for chat. Clicking on their name will activate a chat window with space to write to the other person, as well as read their reply.


Text chat

Internet Relay Chat Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
(IRC) and other
online chat Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real-time transmission of text messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participants to respond quickly. Ther ...
technologies allow users to join and communicate with many people at once, publicly. Users may join a pre-existing chat room or create a new one about any topic. Once inside, you may type messages that everyone else in the room can read, as well as respond to/from others. Often there is a steady stream of people entering and leaving. Whether you are in another person's chat room or one you've created yourself, you are generally free to invite others online to join you in that room.


Collaborative software

The goal of collaborative software, also known as groupware, such as Moodle, Landing pages, Enterprise Architecture, and Sharepoint, is to allow subjects to share data – such as files, photos, text, etc. for the purpose of project work or school work. The intent is to first form a group and then have them collaborate. Clay Shirky defines social software as "software that supports group interaction". Since groupware supports group interaction (once the group is formed), it would consider it to be social software.


Internet forums

Originally modeled after the real-world paradigm of electronic bulletin boards of the world before internet was widely available, ''internet forums'' allow users to post a "topic" for others to review. Other users can view the topic and post their own comments in a linear fashion, one after the other. Most forums are public, allowing anybody to sign up at any time. A few are private, gated communities where new members must pay a small fee to join. Forums can contain many different categories in a hierarchy, typically organized according to topics and subtopics. Other features include the ability to post images or files or to quote another user's post with special formatting in one's own post. Forums often grow in popularity until they can boast several thousand members posting replies to tens of thousands of topics continuously. There are various standards and claimants for the market leaders of each software category. Various add-ons may be available, including translation and spelling correction software, depending on the expertise of the operators of the bulletin board. In some industry areas, the bulletin board has its own commercially successful achievements: free and paid hardcopy magazines as well as professional and amateur sites. Current successful services have combined new tools with the older
newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically disti ...
and
mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...
paradigm to produce hybrids. Also as a service catches on, it tends to adopt characteristics and tools of other services that compete. Over time, for example, wiki user pages have become social portals for individual users and may be used in place of other portal applications.


Wikis

In the past, web pages were only created and edited by web designers that had the technological skills to do so. Currently there are many tools that can assist individuals with web content editing. Wikis allow novices to be on the same level as experienced web designers because wikis provide easy rules and guidelines. Wikis allow all individuals to work collaboratively on web content without having knowledge of any markup languages. A wiki is made up of many content pages that are created by its users. Wiki users are able to create, edit, and link related content pages together. The user community is based on the individuals that want to participate to improve the overall wiki. Participating users are in a democratic community where any user can edit any other user's work.


Blogs

Blogs, short for web logs, are like online journals for a particular person. The owner will post a message periodically, allowing others to comment. Topics often include the owner's daily life, views on politics, or about a particular subject important to them. Blogs mean many things to different people, ranging from "online journal" to "easily updated personal website." While these definitions are technically correct, they fail to capture the power of blogs as social software. Beyond being a simple homepage or an online diary, some blogs allow comments on the entries, thereby creating a discussion forum. They also have blogrolls (i.e. links to other blogs which the owner reads or admires) and indicate their social relationship to those other bloggers using the XFN social relationship standard.
Pingback A pingback is one of four types of linkback methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. Some weblog softwa ...
and trackback allow one blog to notify another blog, creating an inter-blog conversation. Blogs engage readers and can build a virtual community around a particular person or interest. Blogging has also become fashionable in business settings by companies who use
enterprise social software Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in "enterprise" (business/commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets ...
.


Collaborative real-time editors

Simultaneous editing of a text or media file by different participants on a network was first demonstrated on research systems as early as the 1970s, but is now practical on a global network. Collaborative real-time editing is now utilized, for example, in film editing and in cloud-based office applications.


Prediction markets

Many prediction market tools have become available (including some
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...
) that make it easy to predict and bet on future events. This software allows a more formal version of social interaction, although it qualifies as a robust type of social software.


Social network services

Social network services allow people to come together online around shared interests, hobbies or causes. For example, some sites provide meeting organization facilities for people who practice the same sports. Other services enable business networking and social event meetup. Some large
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
s have effectively become social network services by encouraging user pages and portals.


Social network search engines

Social network search engines are a class of search engines that use social networks to organize, prioritize or filter search results. There are two subclasses of social network search engines: those that use explicit social networks and those that use implicit social networks. *Explicit social network search engines allow people to find each other according to explicitly stated social relationships. XHTML Friends Network allows people to share their relationships on their own sites, thus forming a decentralized/distributed online social network, in contrast to centralized social network services listed in the previous section. *Implicit social network search engines allow people to filter search results based upon classes of social networks they trust, such as a shared political viewpoint. This was called an
epistemic filter Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Ep ...
in the 1993 "State of the Future Report" from the American Committee for the United Nations University which predicted that this would become the dominant means of search for most users. Lacking trustworthy explicit information about such viewpoints, this type of social network search engine mines the web to infer the topology of online social networks. For example, the NewsTrove search engine infers social networks from content - sites, blogs, pods and feeds - by examining, among other things, subject matter, link relationships and grammatical features to infer social networks.


Deliberative social networks

Deliberative social networks are webs of discussion and debate for decision-making purposes. They are built for the purpose of establishing sustained relationships between individuals and their government. They rely upon informed opinion and advice that is given with a clear expectation of outcomes.


Commercial social networks

Commercial social networks are designed to support business transaction and to build a trust between an individual and a brand, which relies on opinion of product, ideas to make the product better, enabling customers to participate with the brands in promoting development, service delivery and a better customer experience.


Social guides

A social guide recommending places to visit or contains information about places in the real world, such as coffee shops, restaurants and wifi hotspots, etc.


Social bookmarking

Some web sites allow users to post their list of bookmarks or favorite websites for others to search and view them. These sites can also be used to meet others through sharing common interests. Additionally, many social bookmarking sites allow users to browse through websites and content shared by other users based on popularity or category. As such, use of social bookmarking sites is an effective tool for
search engine optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as "natural" or "organic" results) rather than dire ...
and
social media optimization Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of a number of outlets and communities to generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, service brand or event. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, social news, bookmarking si ...
for
webmaster A webmaster is a person responsible for maintaining one or more websites. The title may refer to web architects, web developers, site authors, website administrators, website owners, website coordinators, or website publishers. The duties of ...
s.
Enterprise bookmarking Enterprise bookmarking is a method for Web 2.0 users to tag, organize, store, and search bookmarks of both web pages on the Internet and data resources stored in a distributed database or fileserver. This is done collectively and collaborativel ...
is a method of tagging and linking any information using an expanded set of tags to capture knowledge about data. It collects and indexes these tags in a web-infrastructure server residing behind the firewall. Users can share knowledge tags with specified people or groups, shared only inside specific networks, typically within an organization.


Social viewing

Social viewing Social viewing (also known as Watch Party or GroupWatch) describes a recently developed practice revolving around the ability for multiple users to aggregate from multiple sources and view online videos together in a synchronized viewing experie ...
allows multiple users to aggregate from multiple sources and view online videos together in a synchronized viewing experience.


Social cataloging

In
social cataloging A social cataloging application is a web application designed to help users to catalog things such as books, films, music albums, etc. owned or otherwise of interest to them. The phrase refers to two characteristics that generally arise from a mul ...
much like social bookmarking, this software is aimed towards academics. It allows the user to post a citation for an article found on the internet or a website, online database like Academic Search Premier or LexisNexis Academic University, a book found in a library catalog and so on. These citations can be organized into predefined categories or a new category defined by the user through the use of tags. This method allows academics researching or interested in similar areas to connect and share resources.


Social libraries

This applications allows visitors to keep track of their collectibles, books, records and DVDs. Users can share their collections. Recommendations can be generated based on user ratings, using statistical computation and
network theory Network theory is the study of graphs as a representation of either symmetric relations or asymmetric relations between discrete objects. In computer science and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory: a network can be de ...
. Some sites offer a buddy system, as well as virtual "check outs" of items for borrowing among friends.
Folksonomy Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tags ...
or tagging is implemented on most of these sites.


Social online storage

Social online storage applications allow their users to collaboratively create file archives containing files of any type. Files can either be edited online or from a local computer, which has access to the storage system. Such systems can be built upon existing server infrastructure or leverage idle resources by applying P2P technology. Such systems are social because they allow public file distribution and direct
file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...
with friends.


Social network analysis

Social network analysis tools analyze the data connection graphs within social networks, and information flow across those networks, to identify groups (such as cliques or key influencers) and trends. They fall into two categories: professional research tools, such as
Mathematica Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimiza ...
, used by social scientists and statisticians, and consumer tools, such as
Wolfram Alpha WolframAlpha ( ) is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It answers factual queries by computing answers from externally sourced data. WolframAlpha was released on May 18, 2009 and is based on Wolfram's earlier product Wolfram Mat ...
, which emphasize ease-of-use.


Virtual worlds

Virtual Worlds are services where it is possible to meet and interact with other people in a virtual environment reminiscent of the real world. Thus the term
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), edu ...
. Typically, the user manipulates an
avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...
through the world, interacting with others using
chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...
or
voice chat Voice chat is telecommunication via voice over IP technologies—especially when those technologies are used among players in multiplayer online games. Users might use either a VoIP engine system that is built into the game, or a separate p ...
.


Massively multiplayer online games

MMOGs are virtual worlds (also known as virtual environments) that add various sorts of point systems, levels, competition and winners and losers to virtual world simulation. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a combination of
role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...
s and
massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...
s


Non-game worlds

Another development are the worlds that are less game-like or not
game A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (suc ...
s at all. Games have points, winners and losers. Instead, some virtual worlds are more like social networking services like MySpace and Facebook, but with 3D simulation features.


Economies

Very often a real economy emerges in these worlds, extending the non-physical
service economy Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments: * The increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer manu ...
within the world to service providers in the real world. Experts can design dresses or hairstyles for characters, go on routine missions for them and so on, and be paid in game money to do so. This emergence has resulted in expanding social possibility and also in increased incentives to cheat. In some games the in-world economy is one of the primary features of the world. Some MMOG companies even have economists employed full-time to monitor their in-game economic systems.


Other specialized social applications

There are many other applications with social software characteristics that facilitate human connection and collaboration in specific contexts. Social Project Management and
e-learning Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edtech, it often refer ...
applications are among these.


Vendor lists

Various analyst firms have attempted to list and categorize the major social software vendors in the marketplace. Jeremiah Owyang of
Forrester Research Forrester is a research and advisory company that offers a variety of services including research, consulting, and events. Forrester has nine North America locations: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California; McLe ...
has listed fifty "community software" platforms. Independent analyst firm
Real Story Group Real Story Group, known as CMS Watch until February 2010, is a digital workplace and marketing technology analyst firm headquartered in Silver Spring, United States with offices in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Bangalore, a ...
has categorized 23 social software vendors, which it evaluates head-to-head.


Politics and journalism

Use of social software for
politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
has also expanded drastically especially over 2004–2006 to include a wide range of social software, often closely integrated with services like
phone tree In telephony, an automated attendant (also auto attendant, auto-attendant, autoattendant, automatic phone menus, AA, or virtual receptionist) allows callers to be automatically transferred to an extension without the intervention of an operator/r ...
s and
deliberative democracy Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional ...
forums and run by a candidate, party or
caucus A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures. The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to a meeting ...
.
Open politics Open-source governance (also known as open governance and open politics) is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any intere ...
, a variant of open-source governance, combines aspects of the
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...
and open content movements, promoting
decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either ra ...
methods claimed to be more open, less antagonistic, and more capable of determining what is in the
public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefor ...
with respect to
public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...
issues. It is a set of best practices from
citizen journalism Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, a ...
,
participatory democracy Participatory democracy, participant democracy or participative democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected repr ...
and
deliberative democracy Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional ...
, informed by
e-democracy E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy), also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is bel ...
and netroots experiments, applying argumentation framework for issue-based argument and a
political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, ...
, which advocates the application of the philosophies of the
open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
document. Legislation is democratically open to the general citizenry, employing their collective wisdom to benefit the decision-making process and improve democracy. Open politics encompasses the
open government Open government is the governing doctrine which sustain that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight. In its broadest construction, it opposes reason of state an ...
principle including those for public participation and engagement, such as the use of IdeaScale,
Google Moderator Google Moderator was a Google service that used crowdsourcing to rank user-submitted questions, suggestions and ideas. It was launched on September 25, 2008 and shut down on June 30, 2015. The service allowed the management of feedback from a lar ...
,
Semantic MediaWiki Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is an extension to MediaWiki that allows for annotating semantic data within wiki pages, thus turning a wiki that incorporates the extension into a semantic wiki. Data that has been encoded can be used in semantic search ...
,
GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, cont ...
, and other software. Collective forms of
online journalism Digital journalism, also known as netizen journalism or online journalism, is a contemporary form of journalism where editorial content is distributed via the Internet, as opposed to publishing via print or broadcast. What constitutes digital ...
have emerged more or less in parallel, in part to keep the political spin in check.


Comparison of communication and interactive tools

Communication tools are generally
asynchronous Asynchrony is the state of not being in synchronization. Asynchrony or asynchronous may refer to: Electronics and computing * Asynchrony (computer programming), the occurrence of events independent of the main program flow, and ways to deal wit ...
. By contrast, interactive tools are generally synchronous, allowing users to communicate in real time (phone, net phone, video chat) or near-synchronous (IM, text chat). Communication involves the content of talk, speech or writing, whereas interaction involves the interest users establish in one another as individuals. In other words, a communication tool may want to make access and searching of text both simple and powerful. An interactive tool may want to present as much of a user's expression, performance and presence as possible. The organization of texts and providing access to archived contributions differs from the facilitation of interpersonal interactions between contributors enough to warrant the distinction in media.


Emerging technologies

Emerging technological capabilities to more widely distribute hosting and support much higher bandwidth in real time are bypassing central content arbiters in some cases.


Virtual presence

Widely viewed, ''virtual presence'' or
telepresence Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location. Telepresence requires that the use ...
means being present via intermediate technologies, usually radio, telephone, television or the internet. In addition, it can denote apparent physical appearance, such as voice, face and body language. More narrowly, the term virtual presence denotes presence on
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
locations, which are identified by URLs. People who are browsing a web site are considered to be virtually present at web locations. Virtual presence is a social software in the sense that people meet on the web by chance or intentionally. The ubiquitous (in the web space) communication transfers behavior patterns from the real world and
virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...
s to the web. Research has demonstrated effects of online indicators


Debates or design choices

Social software may be better understood as a ''set'' of debates or design choices, rather than any particular list of tools. Broadly conceived, there are many older media such as
mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...
s and
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
fora that qualify as "social". However, most users of this term restrict its meaning to more recent software genres such as
blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
s and
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
s. Others suggest that the term ''social software'' is best used not to refer to a single type of software, but rather to the use of two or more modes of
computer-mediated communication Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated forma ...
that result in "community formation." In this view, people form online communities by combining one-to-one (e.g.
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
and
instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...
), one-to-many ( Web pages and
blogs A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
) and many-to-many (
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
s) communication modes. Some groups schedule
real life Real life is a phrase used originally in literature to distinguish between the real world and fictional, virtual or idealized worlds, and in acting to distinguish between actors and the characters they portray. It has become a popular term on the ...
meetings and so become "real" communities of people that share physical lives. Most definers of social software agree that they seem to facilitate "bottom-up" community development. The system is classless and promotes those with abilities. Membership is voluntary, reputations are earned by winning the trust of other members and the community's missions and governance are defined by the members themselves. Communities formed by "bottom-up" processes are often contrasted to the less vibrant collectivities formed by "top-down" software, in which users' roles are determined by an external authority and circumscribed by rigidly conceived software mechanisms (such as access rights). Given small differences in policies, the same type of software can produce radically different social outcomes. For instance,
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware or simply Tiki, originally known as TikiWiki, is a free and open source Wiki-based content management system and online office suite written primarily in PHP and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LG ...
has a fine-grained permission system of detailed access control so the site administrator can, on a page-by-page basis, determine which groups can view, edit or view the history. By contrast,
MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for Media ...
avoids per-user controls, to keep most pages editable by most users and puts more information about users currently editing in its recent changes pages. The result is that Tiki can be used both by community groups who embrace the social paradigm of MediaWiki and by groups who prefer to have more content control. By design, social software reflects the traits of
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods fo ...
s and is consciously designed to let
social network analysis Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...
work with a very compatible database. All social software systems create links between users, as persistent as the identity those users choose. Through these persistent links, a permanent community can be formed out of a formerly
epistemic community An epistemic community is a network of knowledge-based experts who help decision-makers to define the problems they face, identify various policy solutions and assess the policy outcomes. The definitive conceptual framework of an epistemic communit ...
. The ownership and control of these links - who is linked and who is not - is in the hands of the user. Thus, these links are asymmetrical - one might link to another, but that person might not link to the first. Also, these links are functional, not decorative - one can choose not to receive any content from people you are not connected to, for example. Wikipedia user pages are a very good example and often contain extremely detailed information about the person who constructed them, including everything from their
mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tong ...
to their moral purchasing preferences. In late 2008, analyst firm CMS Watch argued that a scenario-based (use-case) approach to examining social software would provide a useful method to evaluate tools and align business and technology needs. Methods and tools for the development of social software are sometimes summarized under the term Social Software Engineering. However, this term is also used to describe lightweight and community-oriented development practices.


Theory

Constructivist learning theorists such as Vygotsky, Leidner and Jarvenpaa have theorized that the process of expressing knowledge aids its creation and that conversations benefit the refinement of knowledge. Conversational
knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...
software fulfills this purpose because conversations, e.g. questions and answers, become the source of relevant knowledge in the organization. Conversational technologies are also seen as tools to support both individual knowledge workers and work units. Many advocates of Social Software assume, and even actively argue, that users create actual
communities A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, to ...
. They have adopted the term " online communities" to describe the resulting social structures.


History

Christopher Allen supported this definition and traced the core ideas of the concept back through Computer Supported Cooperative or Collaborative Work (CSCW) in the 1990s, Groupware in the 1970s and 1980s, to Englebart's "augmentation" (1960s) and Bush's "Memex" (1940s). Although he identifies a "lifecycle" to this terminology that appears to reemerge each decade in a different form, this does not necessarily mean that social software is simply old wine in new bottles. The augmentation capabilities of social software were demonstrated in early internet applications for communication, such as e-mail, newsgroups, groupware, virtual communities etc. In the current phase of Allen's lifecycle, these collaborative tools add a capability "that aggregates the actions of networked users." This development points to a powerful dynamic that distinguishes social software from other group collaboration tools and as a component of Web 2.0 technology. Capabilities for content and behavior aggregation and redistribution present some of the more important potentials of this media. In the next phase, academic experiments, Social Constructivism and the open source software movement are expected to be notable influences.
Clay Shirky Clay Shirky (born 1964) is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism. In 2017 he was appointed Vice Provost of Educational Technologies of New York University (NYU), aft ...
traces the origin of the term "social software" to Eric Drexler's 1987 discussion of "hypertext publishing systems" like the subsequent World Wide Web, and how systems of this kind could support software for public critical discussion, collaborative development, group commitment, and
collaborative filtering Collaborative filtering (CF) is a technique used by recommender systems.Francesco Ricci and Lior Rokach and Bracha ShapiraIntroduction to Recommender Systems Handbook Recommender Systems Handbook, Springer, 2011, pp. 1-35 Collaborative filtering ...
of content based on voting and rating. ''Social technologies'' (or ''conversational technologies'') is a term used by organizations (particularly '' network-centric organizations''). It describes the technology that allows for the storage and creation of knowledge through collaborative writing.


Timeline

In 1945,
Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...
described a
hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically ...
-like device called the " memex" in his ''
The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' article ''
As We May Think "As We May Think" is a 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush which has been described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society. It was first published in ''The Atlantic'' in July 1945 and republished in an abridged ...
''. In 1962,
Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularl ...
published his seminal work, "Augmenting Human Intellect: a conceptual framework." In this paper, he proposed using computers to augment training. With his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart started to develop a computer system to augment human abilities, including learning. Debuting in 1968, the system was simply called the oNLine System ( NLS). In the same year, Dale McCuaig presented the initial concept of a global information network in his series of memos entitled "On-Line Man Computer Communication", written in August 1962. However, the actual development of the internet must be credited to Lawrence G. Roberts of MIT, along with
Leonard Kleinrock Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and a long-tenured professor at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. In the early 1960s, Kleinrock pioneered the application of queueing theor ...
, Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf. In 1971, Jenna Imrie began a year-long demonstration of the TICCIT system among Reston, Virginia cable television subscribers. Interactive television services included informational and educational demonstrations using a touch-tone telephone. The
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
re-funded the
PLATO Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
project and also funded MITRE's proposal to modify its TICCIT technology as a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system to support English and algebra at community colleges. MITRE subcontracted instructional design and courseware authoring tasks to the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
and
Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-d ...
. Also during this year,
Ivan Illich Ivan Dominic Illich ( , ; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book ''Deschooling Society'' criticises modern society's institutional approach to edu ...
described computer-based "learning webs" in his book ''Deschooling Society''. In 1980, Seymour Papert at MIT published "Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas" (New York: Basic Books). This book inspired a number of books and studies on "microworlds" and their impact on learning.
BITNET BITNET was a co-operative U.S. university computer network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and Greydon Freeman at Yale University. The first network link was between CUNY and Yale. The name BITNET origina ...
was founded by a consortium of US and Canadian universities. It allowed universities to connect with each other for educational communications and e-mail. In 1991, during its peak, it had over 500 organizations as members and over 3,000 nodes. Its use declined as the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
grew. In 1986, Tony Bates published "''The Role of Technology in Distance Education''",Bates, Tony & Helm, Croom, eds. (1984). ''The Role of Technology in Distance Education''. Retrieved on 15 August 2006. reflecting (in 1986!) on ways forward for e-learning. He based this work on 15 years of operational use of computer networks at the Open University and nine years of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed later are anticipated here. Though prototyped in 1983, the first version of Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE) was installed in 1986 on a small network of Cemcorp ICON computers, at an elementary school in Toronto, Canada. CSILE included text and graphical notes authored by different user levels (students, teachers, others) with attributes such as comments and thinking types which reflect the role of the note in the author's thinking. Thinking types included "my theory", "new information", and "I need to understand." CSILE later evolved into Knowledge Forum. In 1989,
Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profes ...
, then a young British engineer working at CERN in Switzerland, circulated a proposal for an in-house online document sharing system which he described as a "web of notes with links." After the proposal was grudgingly approved by his superiors, he called the new system the World Wide Web. In 1992, the CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach) system was developed at Michigan State University. It was first used in a 92-student physics class in the fall of 1992. Students accessed random personalized homework problems through
Telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...
. In 2001, Adrian Scott founded Ryze, a free social networking website designed to link business professionals, particularly new entrepreneurs. In February 2002, the suvi.org Addressbook started its service. It was the first service that connected people together. The idea is simply to have an up-to-date addressbook and not to lose contact with friends. Other people on the globe had the same idea. Friendster, Facebook and many other services were successors to this. In April 2002, Jonathan Abrams created his profile on
Friendster Friendster was a social network game based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003.Eric Eldon, August 4, 2008.Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO VentureBeat. Retrieved December 4, ...
. In 2003, Hi5,
LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
, MySpace, and
XING XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 ''XING SE''). The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain, and competes with the American platform Li ...
were launched. In February 2004,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
was launched. In 2004, Levin (in Allen 2004, sec. 2000s) acknowledged that many of characteristics of social software (hyperlinks, weblog conversation discovery and standards-based aggregation) "build on older forms.". Nevertheless, "the difference in scale, standardization, simplicity and social incentives provided by web access turn a difference in degree to a difference in kind." Key technological factors underlying this difference in kind in the computer, network and information technologies are: filtered hypertext, ubiquitous web/computing, continuous internet connectivity, cheap, efficient and small electronics, content syndication strategies (RSS) and others. Additionally, the convergence of several major information technology systems for voice, data and video into a single system makes for expansive computing environments with far reaching effects. In October 2005,
Marc Andreessen Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silico ...
(after Netscape and Opsware) and
Gina Bianchini Gina Bianchini (born 1972) is an American entrepreneur and investor. She is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks. Early life and career She grew up in Cupertino, California, graduated with honors from Stanford University, started her career ...
co-founded Ning, an online platform where users can create their own social websites and networks. Ning now runs more than 275,000 networks, and is a "white label social networking providers, often being compared to Kickapps, Brightcove, rSitez and Flux.
StudiVZ StudiVZ, SchülerVZ and MeinVZ was a social networking platform for students (in particular for college and university students in Europe) and based in Berlin, Germany. The name is an abbreviation of the German expression ''Studentenverzeichni ...
was launched in November 2005. In 2009, the Army's Program Executive Office - Command, Control, and Communications Tactical (PEO-C3T) founded
milSuite milSuite is a collection of online applications focused on improving the methods of secure collaboration for the United States Department of Defense. The effort is produced by the U.S. Army PEO EIS MilTech Solutions office with the online suite c ...
capturing the concepts of Wiki, YouTube, Blogging, and connecting with other members of the DOD behind a secure firewall. This platform engages the premise of social networking while also facilitating
open source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...
with its purchase of JIVE.


Criticism


Exponential generation of resource consuming negative externalities

When a person or business sends a message to a network of people this generates an exponential process that can consume considerable amounts of resources - most importantly human time. This approach can have a beneficial effect on those interested in the message, but can also consume time of people not interested in the message. It can also create in many a
social obligation Social responsibility is an ethical framework in which an individual is obligated to work and cooperate with other individuals and organizations for the benefit of the community that will inherit the world that individual leaves behind. Social ...
to look - albeit briefly - at the message - particularly when it is from someone you know or consider to be a friend. When a message is completely unwanted and unsolicited, this is a form of
information pollution Information pollution (also referred to as info pollution) is the contamination of information supply with irrelevant, redundant, unsolicited, hampering and low-value information. Examples include misinformation, junk e-mail and media violence. ...
and is often known as
spam Spam may refer to: * Spam (food), a canned pork meat product * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ...
. When a message is from a network of friends, and wanted by some but not all, it generates
negative externalities In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either co ...
in that it consumes valuable resources (time). Some examples : Bill sends an email or social message to 20 friends. Of these 2 are very interested, 8 become interested, the rest are not interested but may read all or part of the message anyway, spending their time. Some of these 20 people will forward the message to their friends. The process repeats - resulting in an exponentially increasing consumption of time by those uninterested in the message (as well as an exponentially increasing consumption of time by people who are or become interested - which may distract them from other more productive tasks). Eventually, when the expected number of people forwarding a message drops below 1, the process dies out, but in the interim it may circulate widely - resulting in a potentially massive waste of resources. Much of the time wasted will be due to a sense of social obligation to at least scan or check on the title of the message.


Social networking in a work environment

Bill works for ACME company and sends out an email memo or network message to 20 coworkers. Some have to read the message (for example if Bill is their boss or a senior person in the hierarchy), others will just scan it - even if they are uninterested. Some may comment on it - sharing the response with multiple recipients, others may forward it to others. Some may not want to read the message, but may feel obligated to read and respond. The outgoing process of sharing or forwarding takes very little time, but may produce exponentially growing time demands on others. Over time, employees may find more of their time devoted to social networking demands at work - including scanning, reading, commenting upon, forwarding, and responding to messages. These social work-obligations may crowd out more productive activities resulting in longer hours with less efficiency. In a sense, social networking at work is similar to a large ongoing group meeting. Sometimes excellent results occur, but other times major amounts of time are wasted. Sometimes output benefits from everyone's input and ongoing consultation, other times, individual work without constant obligation to check in and gain consensus may be more productive. The output of a "
committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
" is sometimes worse than that of an individual or small team.


Information overload and arbitrary filtering of communication

As information supply increases, the average time spent evaluating individual content has to decrease. Eventually, much communication is summarily ignored - based on very arbitrary and rapid
heuristics A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
that will filter out the information for example by category. Bad information crowds out the good - much the way SPAM often crowds out potentially useful unsolicited communications.


Cyberbullying

Cyber bullying is different than conventional bullying. Cyber bullying refers to the threat or abuse of a victim by the use of the internet and electronic devices. Victims of cyber bullying can be targeted over social media, email, or text messages. These attacks are typically aggressive, and repetitive in nature. Internet bullies can make multiple email, social media, etc. accounts to attack a victim. Free email accounts that are available to end users can lead a bully to use various identities for communication with the victim. Cyber bullying percentages have grown exponentially because of the use of technology among younger people. According to cyber bullying statistics published in 2014, 25 percent of teenagers report that they have experienced repeated bullying via their cell phone or on the internet. 52 percent of young people report being cyber bullied. Embarrassing or damaging photographs taken without the knowledge or consent of the subject has been reported by 11 percent of adolescents and teens. Of the young people who reported cyber bullying incidents against them, 33 percent of them reported that their bullies issued online threats. Often, both bullies and cyber bullies turn to hate speech to victimize their target. One-tenth of all middle school and high school students have been on the receiving end of "hate terms" hurled against them. 55 percent of all teens who use social media have witnessed outright bullying via that medium. 95 percent of teens who witnessed bullying on social media report that others, like them, have ignored the behavior.


See also

*
List of social software This is a list of notable social software: selected examples of social software products and services that facilitate a variety of forms of social human contact. Blogs *Apache Roller *Blogger *IBM Lotus Connections *Posterous * Telligent Commu ...
*
Commons-based peer production Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler. It describes a model of socio-economic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively; usually over the Internet. Commons-based ...
*
Conformity Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often cho ...
*
Customer engagement Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer (either B2C or B2B) and an organization (company or brand) through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen's (2019, p. 166) S-D l ...
*
Folksonomy Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tags ...
*
Groupthink Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness ...
* List of membership software *
Knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...
*
Online identity Internet identity (IID), also online identity or internet persona, is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites. It may also be an actively constructed presentation of oneself. Although some people choo ...
*
Online deliberation Online deliberation is a broad term used to describe many forms of non-institutional, institutional and experimental online discussions.Bächtiger, A., Dryzek, John S., Mansbridge, Jane J., & Warren, Mark. (2018). The Oxford handbook of deliberative ...
*
Participatory media Participatory media is communication media where the audience can play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating content.Bowman, S., Willis, C.We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Info ...
* Personal network *
Pseudonymity A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...
* Social bot *
Social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
*
Social software in education Social software, also known as social apps or social platform, include communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usua ...
*
Social web The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social inte ...
*
The WELL The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, normally shortened to The WELL, was launched in 1985. It is one of the oldest continuously operating virtual communities. By 1993 it had 7,000 members, a staff of 12, and gross annual income of $2 million. ...
*
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
*
Virtual community A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...
*
Online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
*
Web community Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...


References


External links


Social Protocols: An Introduction
- by Joseph M. Reagle Jr.
IBM Center for Social Software
launched in September 2008
Definition of Social Software
an
Revised / Simplified Definition of Social Software
by Tom Coates, May 2003 and January 2005 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Social Software Social information processing Social systems