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An addendum to a definition of Social Software

I’m loath to wake the old evil beastie of definitions of social software, but I came across some old notes that I sent off to someone in October and I’d like to keep track of it for later. Basically the question was could you produce a short and pithy, mostly accurate short-hand description of social software that mostly worked. I came up with:

Social Software can be loosely defined as software which supports, extends, or derives added value from, human social behaviour – message-boards, musical taste-sharing, photo-sharing, instant messaging, mailing lists, social networking.

I slapped a lot of examples in there because it seemed to clarify the issue a bit. Note, this is a shorthand, and nothing more – my fuller posts on the subject include: My working definition of social software but I think maybe I prefer this shorter, rotted-down and composted version.

11 replies on “An addendum to a definition of Social Software”

Who was it that said “social software is software that’s better when there’s people there” or something like that? Was that you? Jones? I like that one – it works for me in designing.

Blogs are not the only fruit

Blogs may have been a word of the year for 2004, but a wider variety of social software tools and group structures will start to gain widespread adoption in 2005, which will present both challenges and opportunities for those of us who are implemen…

Coates’ shorthad definition of social software
Tom glosses himself, coming up with a pithier and more example-driven definition of social software: Social Software can be loosely defined as software which supports, extends, or derives added value from, human social behaviour – message-boards, music…

Coates’ new shorthand definition of social software
Tom glosses himself, coming up with a pithier and more example-driven definition of social software: Social Software can be loosely defined as software which supports, extends, or derives added value from, human social behaviour – message-boards, music…

I find Photoshop, Excel, Word and a bunch of other software useful that I’ve never invited anyone to, but to each their own!

I think WhatchaRockin.com is the closest example of someone using social software for “musical taste-sharing”. What do you guys think?

I’d say that audioscrobbler was probably the best example of social software for musical taste-sharing.
And to Stewart, my point was that there is at least one person present when you’re using Photoshop, Excel and Word! Compare the line with its opposite – ‘social software does not include any kinds of software that are better when there’s no one there to use it’

The Significance of “Social Software”
This is an abstract of a paper that i would like to eventually write (although i don’t know for where). In the meantime, i thought i’d throw it up here for critique. In 2002, Clay Shirky (re)claimed the term “social software” to encompass “all uses of …

@ Stewart:
You might have looked for this one:
“[…] Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.”
by O’Reilly

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