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Social software: the building blocks of online communities IMKE CSC2006 Kaido 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 – projectbased, '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