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.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
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.
→ Posted by: Stewart at January 6, 2005 11:54 AM
That never made an awful lot of sense to me - in that software without connection to people doesn't really seem terribly useful.
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at January 6, 2005 12:00 PM
I find Photoshop, Excel, Word and a bunch of other software useful that I've never invited anyone to, but to each their own!
→ Posted by: Stewart Butterfield at January 7, 2005 12:14 AM
I think WhatchaRockin.com is the closest example of someone using social software for "musical taste-sharing". What do you guys think?
→ Posted by: Steve at January 7, 2005 12:23 AM
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'
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at January 7, 2005 10:45 AM