Social software

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For the field of study, see Social software (social procedure).
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Social software, also known as Web 2.0 applications or social apps, include comm
unication tools and interactive tools often based on the Internet. Communication
tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication
, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactiv
e tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They focu
s on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mec
hanics of conversation and talk.[1] Although we do not have a generally accepted
definition but by social software we mean software that makes collaborative beh
aviour, the organisation and moulding of communities, self-expression, social in
teraction and feedback possible for individuals. Another important element of ex
isting definition of "social software" is that it allows structured mediation of
opinion between people, in a centralized or self-regulating manner. The most im
proved area for social software is that Web 2.0 applications can all promote coo
peration between people and the creation of online communities more than ever be
fore.
Contents [hide]
1
Types
1.1
Instant messaging
1.2
Text chat
1.3
Collaborative software
1.4
Internet forums
1.5
Wikis
1.6
Blogs
1.7
Collaborative real-time editors
1.8
Prediction markets
1.9
Social network services
1.10
Social network search engines
1.11
Deliberative social networks
1.12
Commercial social networks
1.13
Social guides
1.14
Social bookmarking
1.15
Social viewing
1.16
Social cataloging
1.17
Social libraries
1.18
Social online storage
1.19
Social network analysis
1.20
Virtual worlds
1.20.1 Massively multiplayer online games
1.20.2 Non-game worlds
1.20.3 Economies
1.21
Other specialized social applications
2
Social software vendor lists
3
Politics and journalism
4
Comparison of communication and interactive tools
5
Emerging technologies
5.1
Virtual presence
6
Debates or design choices
7
Theory
8
History
8.1
Timeline

9
Criticism
9.1
Exponential generation of resource consuming negative externalities
9.1.1 Social networking in a work environment
9.2
Information overload and arbitrary filtering of communication
9.3
Downsides of ubiquitous social networking
9.3.1 Cyberbullying
9.3.2 Groupthink and conformity
10
See also
11
Notes and references
12
External links
Types[edit]
Instant messaging[edit]
Main article: Instant messaging
An instant messaging application or client allows one to communicate with anothe
r person over a network in real time, in relative privacy. Popular, consumer-ori
ented clients include AOL Instant Messenger, Google Hangouts, ICQ, Meebo, MSN Me
ssenger, Pidgin (formerly maig), and Yahoo! Messenger. Instant messaging softwar
e designed for use in business includes IBM Sametime, XMPP and Microsoft Messeng
er.
One can add friends to a contact or buddy list by entering the person's email ad
dress or messenger ID. If the person is online, their name will typically be lis
ted as available for chat. Clicking on their name will activate a chat window wi
th space to write to the other person, as well as read their reply.
Text chat[edit]
Main article: Text chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and other online chat technologies allow users to join
and communicate with many people at once, publicly. Users may join a pre-existi
ng chat room or create a new one about any topic. Once inside, you may type mess
ages 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[edit]
Main article: Collaborative software
The goal of collaborative software, also known as groupware, such as Moodle, Lan
ding pages, Enterprise Architecture, and Sharepoint, is to allow subjects to sha
such as files, photos, text, etc. for the purpose of project work or sch
re data
ool work. The intent is to first form a group and then have them collaborate amo
ng each other. Clay Shirky defines social software as software that supports grou
p interaction . Since groupware supports group interaction (once the group is form
ed), it would consider it to be social software.
Internet forums[edit]
Main article: Internet forum
Originally modeled after the real-world paradigm of electronic bulletin boards o
f the world before internet was born, internet forums allow users to post a "top
ic" for others to review. Other users can view the topic and post their own comm
ents 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 m
embers must pay a small fee to join, like the Something Awful Forums.
Forums can contain many different categories in a hierarchy 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 ofte
n grow in popularity until they can boast several thousand members posting repli
es to tens of thousands of topics continuously.
There are various standards and claimants for the market leaders of each softwar
e category. Various add-ons may be available, including translation and spelling
correction software, depending on the expertise of the operators of the bulleti
n board. In some industry areas, the bulletin board has its own commercially suc
cessful achievements: free and paid hardcopy magazines as well as professional a
nd amateur sites.

Current successful services have combined new tools with the older newsgroup and
mailing list paradigm to produce hybrids like Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups.
Also as a service catches on, it tends to adopt characteristics and tools of oth
er services that compete. Over time, for example, wiki user pages have become so
cial portals for individual users and may be used in place of other portal appli
cations.
Wikis[edit]
Main articles: Wikis and Wiki software
In the past, web pages were only created and edited by web designers that had th
e technological skills to do so. Today there are many tools that can assist indi
viduals with web content editing. Wikis allow novices to be on the same level as
experienced web designers because wikis provide easy rules and guidelines. Wiki
s allow all individuals to work collaboratively on web content without having kn
owledge of any markup languages. A wiki is made up of many content pages that ar
e created by its users. Wiki users are able to create, edit, and link related co
ntent pages together. The user community is based on the individuals that want t
o participate to improve the overall wiki. The participating users are in a demo
cratic community were any users can edit other user s work.[2]
Examples include Wikipedia, Wiktionary, the original Portland Pattern Repository
wiki, MeatballWiki, CommunityWiki and Wikisource. For more detail on free and c
ommercially available wiki systems see Comparison of wiki software.
Blogs[edit]
Main article: Blog
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 ofte
n include the owner's daily life, views on politics or a particular subject impo
rtant to them.
Blogs mean many things to different people, ranging from "online journal" to "ea
sily updated personal website." While these definitions are technically correct,
they fail to capture the power of blogs as social software. Beyond being a simp
le homepage or an online diary, some blogs allow comments on the entries, thereb
y creating a discussion forum. They also have blogrolls (i.e. links to other blo
gs which the owner reads or admires) and indicate their social relationship to t
hose other bloggers using the XFN social relationship standard. Pingback and tra
ckback allow one blog to notify another blog, creating an inter-blog conversatio
n. Blogs engage readers and can build a virtual community around a particular pe
rson or interest. Examples include Slashdot, LiveJournal, BlogSpot. Blogging has
also become fashionable in business settings by companies who use software such
as IBM Connections.
Collaborative real-time editors[edit]
Main article: Collaborative real-time editor
Simultaneous editing of a text or media file by different participants on a netw
ork 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 on services such as Google Docs.
Prediction markets[edit]
Main article: Prediction market
Many prediction market tools have become available (including some free software
) that make it easy to predict and bet on future events. This a more formal vers
ion of social interaction, although it qualifies as a robust type of social soft
ware.
Social network services[edit]
Main article: Social network service
Social network services allow people to come together online around shared inter
ests, hobbies or causes. For example, some sites provide meeting organization fa
cilities for people who practice the same sports. Other services enable business
networking (Ryze, XING and LinkedIn) and social event meetups (Meetup).
Some large wikis have effectively become social network services by encouraging
user pages and portals.
Anyone can create their own social networking service using hosted offerings lik

e Ning, or more flexible, installable software like Dolphin Pro, Elgg Social Net
working Engine, BuddyPress, SocialEngine, Oxwall, Status.net or Concursive's Con
courseConnect.
Social network search engines[edit]
Social network search engines are a class of search engines that use social netw
orks to organize, prioritize or filter search results. There are two subclasses
of social network search engines: those that use explicit social networks and th
ose that use implicit social networks.
Explicit social network search engines allow people to find each other according
to explicitly stated social relationships such as XFN social relationships. XHT
ML Friends Network, for example, allows people to share their relationships on t
heir own sites, thus forming a decentralized/distributed online social network,
in contrast to centralized social network services listed in the previous sectio
n.
Implicit social network search engines allow people to filter search results bas
ed upon classes of social networks they trust, such as a shared political viewpo
int. This was called an epistemic filter 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 soc
ial network search engine mines the web to infer the topology of online social n
etworks. For example, the NewsTrove search engine infers social networks from co
ntent - sites, blogs, pods and feeds - by examining, among other things, subject
matter, link relationships and grammatical features to infer social networks.
Deliberative social networks[edit]
Deliberative social networks are webs of discussion and debate for decision-maki
ng purposes. They are built for the purpose of establishing sustained relationsh
ips between individuals and their government. They rely upon informed opinion an
d advice that is given with a clear expectation of outcomes.
Commercial social networks[edit]
Commercial social networks are designed to support business transaction and to b
uild a trust between an individual and a brand, which relies on opinion of produ
ct, ideas to make the product better, enabling customers to participate with the
brands in promoting development, service delivery and a better customer experie
nce.[citation needed] An example of these networks is Dell IdeaStorm.
Social guides[edit]
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. One
such application is Wikivoyage.
Social bookmarking[edit]
Main articles: Social bookmarking and Enterprise bookmarking
Some web sites allow users to post their list of bookmarks or favorites websites
for others to search and view them. These sites can also be used to meet others
sharing common interests. Additionally, many social bookmarking sites allow use
rs to browse through websites and content shared by other users based on popular
ity or category. As such, use of social bookmarking sites is an effective tool f
or search engine optimization and social media optimization for webmasters.[3] E
xamples include digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, reddit, and furl.[4]
Enterprise bookmarking 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 c
an share knowledge tags with specified people or groups, shared only inside spec
ific networks, typically within an organization. Examples of this software are K
nowledge Plaza, Jumper 2.0, IBM Dogear, and Connectbeam.
Social viewing[edit]
Main article: Social viewing
Social viewing allows multiple users to aggregate from multiple sources and view
online videos together in a synchronized viewing experience.
Social cataloging[edit]
Main article: Social cataloging application

In social cataloging much like social bookmarking, this software is aimed toward
s academics. It allows the user to post a citation for an article found on the i
nternet or a website, online database like Academic Search Premier or LexisNexis
Academic University, a book found in a library catalog and so on. These citatio
ns can be organized into predefined categories or a new category defined by the
user through the use of tags. This allows academics researching or interested in
similar areas to connect and share resources.
Social libraries[edit]
This applications allows visitors to keep track of their collectibles, books, re
cords and DVDs. Users can share their collections. Recommendations can be genera
ted based on user ratings, using statistical computation and network theory. Som
e sites offer a buddy system, as well as virtual "check outs" of items for borro
wing among friends. Folksonomy or tagging is implemented on most of these sites.
Social online storage[edit]
Social online storage applications allow their users to collaboratively create f
ile 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 b
e built upon existing server infrastructure (e.g. GDrive) or leverage idle resou
rces by applying P2P technology (e.g. Wuala). Such systems are social because th
ey allow public file distribution and direct file sharing with friends.
Social network analysis[edit]
Social network analysis tools analyze the data connection graphs within social n
etworks, and information flow across those networks, to identify groups (such as
cliques or key influencers) and trends. They fall into two categories: professi
onal research tools, such as Mathematica, used by social scientists and statisti
cians, and consumer tools, such as Wolfram Alpha[5][6] which emphasise ease-of-u
se. See list at Social network analysis software.
Virtual worlds[edit]
Main article: Virtual world
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 vi
rtual reality. Typically, the user manipulates an avatar through the world, inte
racting with others using chat or voice chat.
Massively multiplayer online games[edit]
Main article: Massively multiplayer online game
MMOGs are virtual worlds (also known as virtual environments) that add various s
orts of point systems, levels, competition and winners and losers to virtual wor
ld simulation. Commercial MMOGs (or, more accurately, massively multiplayer onli
ne role-playing games or MMORPGs,) include EverQuest and World of Warcraft.
Non-game worlds[edit]
Another development are the worlds that are less game-like or not games at all.
Games have points, winners and losers. Instead, some virtual worlds are more lik
e social networking services like MySpace and Facebook, but with 3D simulation f
eatures. Examples include Second Life, ActiveWorlds, The Sims Online and There.
Economies[edit]
Main article: Virtual economy
Very often a real economy emerges in these worlds, extending the non-physical se
rvice economy within the world to service providers in the real world. Experts c
an 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 ex
panding social possibility and also in increased incentives to cheat. In the cas
e of Second Life, the in-world economy is one of the primary features of the wor
ld. Some MMOG companies even have economists employed full-time (for example, CC
P Games with Eve Online) to monitor their in-game economic systems.
Other specialized social applications[edit]
There are many other applications with social software characteristics that faci
litate human connection and collaboration in specific contexts. Social Project M
anagement and e-learning applications are among these.
Social software vendor lists[edit]
Various analyst firms have attempted to list and categorize the major social sof

tware vendors in the marketplace. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research has list
ed fifty "community software" platforms.[7] Independent analyst firm Real Story
Group has categorized what it calls "the 25 most significant" social software ve
ndors,[8] which it evaluates head-to-head.[9]
Politics and journalism[edit]
Use of social software for politics has also expanded drastically especially ove
r 2004~2006 to include a wide range of social software, often closely integrated
with services like phone trees and deliberative democracy forums and run by a c
andidate, party or caucus.
Open politics, a variant of open-source governance, combines aspects of the free
software and open content movements, promoting decision-making methods claimed
to be more open, less antagonistic, and more capable of determining what is in t
he public interest with respect to public policy issues. It is a set of best pra
ctices from citizen journalism, participatory democracy and deliberative democra
cy, informed by e-democracy and netroots experiments, applying argumentation fra
mework for issue-based argument and a political philosophy which advocates the a
pplication of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to
democratic principles to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of
policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is democratically opened to the ge
neral citizenry, employing their collective wisdom to benefit the decision-makin
g process and improve democracy.[10] Open politics encompasses the open governme
nt principle including those for public participation and engagement, such as th
e use of IdeaScale, Google Moderator, Semantic MediaWiki, GitHub, and other soft
ware.[11]
Collective forms of online journalism have emerged more or less in parallel, in
part to keep the political spin in check.
Comparison of communication and interactive tools[edit]
Communication tools are generally asynchronous. By contrast, interactive tools a
re 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 interacti
on 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 int
erpersonal interactions between contributors enough to warrant the distinction i
n media.[citation needed]
Emerging technologies[edit]
Further information: Emerging technologies and List of emerging technologies IT
and communications
Emerging technological capabilities to more widely distribute hosting and suppor
t much higher bandwidth in real time are bypassing central content arbiters in s
ome cases.[citation needed]
Virtual presence[edit]
Main article: Telepresence
Widely viewed, virtual presence or telepresence means being present via intermed
iate technologies, usually radio, telephone, television or the internet. In addi
tion, it can denote apparent physical appearance, such as voice, face and body l
anguage.
More narrowly, the term virtual presence denotes presence on World Wide Web loca
tions which are identified by URLs. People who are browsing a web site are consi
dered to be virtually present at web locations. Virtual presence is a social sof
tware in the sense that people meet on the web by chance or intentionally. The u
biquitous (in the web space) communication transfers behavior patterns from the
real world and virtual worlds to the web. Research[12] has demonstrated effects[
13] of online indicators
Debates or design choices[edit]
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 olde

r media such as mailing lists and Usenet fora that qualify as "social". However,
most users of this term restrict its meaning to more recent software genres suc
h as blogs and wikis. 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 that result in "community formation."[1
4] In this view, people form online communities by combining one-to-one (e.g. em
ail and instant messaging), one-to-many (Web pages and blogs) and many-to-many (
wikis) communication modes.[15] Some groups schedule real life meetings and so b
ecome "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 the
mselves.[16]
Communities formed by "bottom-up" processes are often contrasted to the less vib
rant collectivities formed by "top-down" software, in which users' roles are det
ermined by an external authority and circumscribed by rigidly conceived software
mechanisms (such as access rights). Given small differences in policies, the sa
me type of software can produce radically different social outcomes. For instanc
e, Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware has a fine-grained permission system of detailed acce
ss control so the site administrator can, on a page-by-page basis, determine whi
ch groups can view, edit or view the history. By contrast, MediaWiki avoids peruser controls, to keep most pages editable by most users and puts more informati
on 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 Me
diaWiki and by groups who prefer to have more content control.
By design, social software reflects the traits of social networks and is designe
d very consciously to let social network analysis work with a very compatible da
tabase. All social software systems create links between users, as persistent as
the identity those users choose. Through these persistent links, a permanent co
mmunity can be formed out of a formerly epistemic community. The ownership and c
ontrol of these links - who is linked and who isn't - is in the hands of the use
r. Thus, these links are asymmetrical - you might link to me, but I might not li
nk to you.[17] Also, these links are functional, not decorative - you can choose
not to receive any content from people you are not connected to, for example. W
ikipedia user pages are a very good example and often contain extremely detailed
information about the person who constructed them, including everything from th
eir mother tongue to their moral purchasing preferences.
In late 2008, independent analyst firm CMS Watch argued that a scenario-based (u
se-case) approach to examining social software would provide a useful way to eva
luate tools and align business and technology needs.[18]
Methods and tools for the development of social software are sometimes summarize
d under the term Social Software Engineering. However, this term is also used to
describe lightweight and community-oriented development practices.[19]
Theory[edit]
Constructivist learning theorists such as Vygotsky, Leidner and Jarvenpaa have t
heorized that the process of expressing knowledge aids its creation and that con
versations benefit the refinement of knowledge. Conversational knowledge managem
ent software fulfills this purpose because conversations, e.g. questions and ans
wers, become the source of relevant knowledge in the organization.[20] Conversat
ional technologies are also seen as tools to support both individual knowledge w
orkers and work units.[21]
Many advocates of Social Software assume, and even actively argue, that users cr
eate actual communities. They have adopted the term "online communities" to desc
ribe the resulting social structures.
History[edit]
Christopher Allen supported this definition and traced the core ideas of this co
ncept back through Computer Supported Cooperative or Collaborative Work (CSCW) i
n the 1990s, Groupware in the 1970s and 1980s, to Englebart s "augmentation" (1960
s) and Bush s "Memex" (1940s). Although he identifies a "lifecycle" to this termin

ology that appears to reemerge each decade in a different form, this does not ne
cessarily mean that social software is simply old wine in new bottles.[22]
The augmentation capabilities of social software were demonstrated in early inte
rnet applications for communication such as e-mail, newsgroups, groupware, virtu
al communities etc. In the current phase of Allen's lifecycle, these collaborati
ve tools add a capability "that aggregates the actions of networked users." This
points to a powerful dynamic that distinguishes social software from other grou
p collaboration tools and as a component of Web 2.0 technology. Capabilities for
content and behavior aggregation and redistribution present some of the more im
portant potentials of this media.[citation needed] In the next phase, academic e
xperiments, Social Constructivism and the open source software movement are expe
cted to be notable influences.
Clay Shirky traces the origin of the term "social software" to Eric Drexler's 19
87 discussion of "hypertext publishing systems" like the subsequent World Wide W
eb, and how systems of this kind could support software for public critical disc
ussion, collaborative development, group commitment, and collaborative filtering
of content based on voting and rating.[23] [1]
Social technologies (or conversational technologies) is a term used by organizat
ions (particularly network-centric organizations). It describes the technology t
hat allows the storage and creation of knowledge through collaborative writing.
Timeline[edit]
In 1945, Vannevar Bush described a hypertext-like device called the "memex" in h
is The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think.[24]
In 1962, Douglas Engelbart published his seminal work, "Augmenting Human Intelle
ct: a conceptual framework." In this paper, he proposed using computers to augme
nt training. With his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart s
tarted to develop a computer system to augment human abilities, including learni
ng. Debuting in 1968, the system was simply called the oNLine System (NLS).[25]
In the same year, Dale McCuaig presented the initial concept of a global informa
tion 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,[26] along with Leonard Kleinrock, Rob
ert Kahn and Vinton Cerf.
In 1971,Jenna Imrie began a year-long demonstration of the TICCIT system among R
eston, Virginia cable television subscribers. Interactive television services in
cluded informational and educational demonstrations using a touch-tone telephone
. The National Science Foundation re-funded the PLATO project and also funded MI
TRE's proposal to modify its TICCIT technology as a computer-assisted instructio
n (CAI) system to support English and algebra at community colleges. MITRE subco
ntracted instructional design and courseware authoring tasks to the University o
f Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University. Also during this year, Ivan Illi
ch described computer-based "learning webs" in his book Deschooling Society.[27]
In 1980, Seymour Papert at MIT published "Mindstorms: children, computers, and p
owerful ideas" (New York: Basic Books). This book inspired a number of books and
studies on "microworlds" and their impact on learning. BITNET was founded by a
consortium of US and Canadian universities. It allowed universities to connect w
ith each other for educational communications and e-mail. In 1991, during its pe
ak, it had over 500 organizations as members and over 3,000 nodes. Its use decli
ned as the World Wide Web grew.
In 1986, Tony Bates published "The Role of Technology in Distance Education",[28
] 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 y
ears of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing
and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed l
ater are anticipated here.[29]
Though prototyped in 1983, the first version of Computer Supported Intentional L
earning 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, othe
rs) with attributes such as comments and thinking types which reflect the role o

f the note in the author's thinking. Thinking types included "my theory", "new i
nformation", and "I need to understand." CSILE later evolved into Knowledge Foru
m.[30]
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, then a young British engineer working at CERN in Switz
erland, circulated a proposal for an in-house online document sharing system whi
ch he described as a "web of notes with links." After the proposal was grudgingl
y 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 i
n the fall of 1992. Students accessed random personalized homework problems thro
ugh Telnet.
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 dat
e addressbook and not to lose contact with friends. Other people on the globe ha
d the same idea. Friendster, Facebook and many other services were successors to
this.
In April 2002, Jonathan Abrams created his profile on Friendster.[31]
In 2003, Hi5, LinkedIn,[32] MySpace, and XING were launched.
In February 2004, Facebook was launched.
In 2004, Levin (in Allen 2004, sec. 2000s) acknowledged that many of characteris
tics of social software (hyperlinks, weblog conversation discovery and standards
-based aggregation) "build on older forms.". Nevertheless, "the difference in sc
ale, standardization, simplicity and social incentives provided by web access tu
rn a difference in degree to a difference in kind." Key technological factors un
derlying this difference in kind in the computer, network and information techno
logies are: filtered hypertext, ubiquitous web/computing, continuous internet co
nnectivity, cheap, efficient and small electronics, content syndication strategi
es (RSS) and others. Additionally, the convergence of several major information
technology systems for voice, data and video into a single system makes for expa
nsive computing environments with far reaching effects.
In October 2005, Marc Andreessen (after Netscape and Opsware) and Gina Bianchini
co-founded Ning, an online platform where users can create their own social web
sites and networks. Ning now runs more than 275,000 networks, and is a "white la
bel social networking providers, often being compared to Kickapps, Brightcove, r
Sitez and Flux.[33] StudiVZ was launched in November 2005.
In 2009, the Army's Program Executive Office - Command, Control, and Communicati
ons Tactical (PEO-C3T) founded milSuite 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 with its purchase of JIVE.
Criticism[edit]
Exponential generation of resource consuming negative externalities[edit]
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 can have a beneficial effect on those interested i
n the message, but can also consume time of people not interested in the message
. It can also create in many a social obligation to look - albeit briefly - at t
he message - particularly when it is from someone you know or consider to be a f
riend.
When a message is completely unwanted and unsolicited, this is a form of informa
tion pollution and is often known as spam. When a message is from a network of f
riends, and wanted by some but not all, it generates negative externalities in t
hat 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 aren't interested but may rea
d all or part of the message anyway, spending their time. Some of these 20 peopl
e will forward the message to their friends. The process repeats - resulting in
an exponentially increasing consumption of time by those uninterested in the mes

sage (as well as an exponentially increasing consumption of time by people who a

re or become interested - which may distract them from other more productive tas
ks). Eventually, when the expected number of people forwarding a message drops b
elow 1, the process dies out, but in the interim it may circulate widely - resul
ting in a potentially massive waste of resources. Much of the time wasted will b
e 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[edit]
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 u
ninterested. Some may comment on it - sharing the response with multiple recipie
nts, 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 forw
arding takes very little time, but may produce exponentially growing time demand
s on others. Over time, employees may find more of their time devoted to social
networking demands at work - including scanning, reading, commenting upon, forwa
rding, and responding to messages. These social work-obligations may crowd out m
ore productive activities resulting in longer hours with less efficiency.
In a sense, social networking at work is similar to a large ongoing group meetin
g. 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" is sometimes worse
than that of an individual or small team.
Information overload and arbitrary filtering of communication[edit]
As information supply increases, the average time spent evaluating individual co
ntent has to decrease. Eventually, much communication is summarily ignored - bas
ed on very arbitrary and rapid heuristics that will filter out the information f
or example by category. Bad information crowds out the good - much the way SPAM
often crowds out potentially useful unsolicited communications. (See also the ma
in article on Information overload).
Downsides of ubiquitous social networking[edit]
Cyberbullying[edit]
Main article: 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 devic
es. Victims of cyber bullying can be targeted over social media, email, or text
messages. These attacks are typically aggressive, and repetitive in nature. Inte
rnet bullies can make multiple email, social media, etc. accounts to attack a vi
ctim. Free email accounts that are available to end users can lead a bully to us
e various identities for communication with the victim. Cyber bullying percentag
es have grown exponentially because of the use of technology among younger users
.[34]
Cyber Bullying Statistics 2014
25 percent of teenagers report that they have experienced repeated bullying via
their cell phone or on the internet. Over half (52 percent) off young people rep
ort being cyber bullied. Embarrassing or damaging photographs taken without the
knowledge or consent of the subject has been reported by 11 percent of adolescen
ts and teens. Of the young people who reported cyber bullying incidents against
them, one-third (33 percent) of them reported that their bullies issued online t
hreats. Often, both bullies and cyber bullies turn to hate speech to victimize t
heir target. One-tenth of all middle school and high school students have been o
n the receiving end of hate terms hurled against them. Over half (55 percent) of a
ll teens who use social media have witnessed outright bullying via that medium.
An astounding 95 percent of teens who witnessed bullying on social media report
that others, like them, have ignored the behavior.[35]
Groupthink and conformity[edit]
Main articles: Groupthink and Conformity
See also[edit]

List of social software

Commons-based peer production
Customer engagement
Folksonomy
List of membership software
Knowledge management
Online identity
Online deliberation
Participatory media
Personal network
Pseudonymity
Social media
Social mobile application
Social software in education
Social web
The WELL
Usenet
Virtual community
Online community
Web community
Notes and references[edit]
Jump up ^ Allen, Christopher (13 October 2004). "Tracing the Evolution of Social
Software". Retrieved 19 June 2011.
Jump up ^ Farkas, Meredith G. (2007). Social Software in Libraries: Building Col
laboration, Communication, and Community Online (2nd print. ed.). Medford, N.J.:
Information Today. pp. 67 68. ISBN 978-1573872751.
Jump up ^ "Importance of Social Bookmarking in SEO or Website Marketing and Prom
otion". Social Bookmark Submission. Retrieved 25 May 2012.
Jump up ^ "Top 15 Most Popular Social Bookmarking Websites". eBizMBA. May 2012.
Retrieved 25 May 2012.
Jump up ^ Facebook friends mapped by Wolfram Alpha app BBC News
Jump up ^ Wolfram Alpha Launches Personal Analytics Reports For Facebook Tech Cr
unch
Jump up ^ Forrester Report, "Vendor Product Catalog of Community Platforms For T
he Interactive Marketer "
Jump up ^ Real Story Group, "Enterprise Social Software Vendor List" | accessdat
e=2011-04-18
Jump up ^ Real Story Group, "Enterprise Collaboration & Social Software Vendor E
valuations | accessdate=2011-04-18"
Jump up ^ Open-source democracy: how online communication is changing offline po
litics by Douglas Rushkoff, published by Demos. Page 56 et al
Jump up ^ Knowledge governance: processes and perspectives; Snejina Michailova,
Nicolai J. Foss, Oxford University Press. Page 241 et al
Jump up ^ Sheizaf Rafaeli & Noy, A. (2002), Online auctions, messaging, communic
ation and social facilitation: a simulation and experimental evidence, European
Journal of Information Systems, September 2002, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 196-207.
Jump up ^ Sheizaf Rafaeli and Noy, A. (2005). "Social Presence: Influence on Bid
ders in Internet Auctions". EM-Electronic Markets, 15(2), 158-176.
Jump up ^ Stowe Boyd, "Are You Ready for Social Software?"
Jump up ^ Clay Shirky, "A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy"
Jump up ^ Matt Webb, "On Social Software"
Jump up ^ Trustlet, Definition of trust network
Jump up ^ CMS Watch, "A Scenario-based Approach to Evaluating Social Software"
Jump up ^ S. Lohmann and T. Riechert, "Adding Semantics to Social Software Engin
eering: (Re-)Using Ontologies in a Community-oriented Requirements Engineering E
nvironment"
Jump up ^ Helen Hasan & Charmaine C Pfaff. 2006. "The Wiki: an environment to re
volutionise employees interaction with corporate knowledge" ACM International Con
ference Proceeding Series; Vol. 206, pp.377-380.
Jump up ^ Helen Hasan & Charmaine C Pfaff. 2006. "Emergent Conversational Techno

logies that are Democratizing Information Systems in Organizations: the case of

the corporate Wiki" Proceedings of the Information Systems Foundations (ISF): Th
eory, Representation and Reality Conference, Australian National University, Can
berra, 27-28 September 2006.
Jump up ^ Allen, Christopher (2004)
Jump up ^ Social Software. Many.corante.com. Retrieved on 2013-10-13.
Jump up ^ Bush, Vannevar (July 1945). "As We May Think". The Atlantic Monthly. R
etrieved 2009-06-22.
Jump up ^ Hegland, Frode; Klijnsma, Fleur; Engelbart, Doug. "The Invisible Revol
ution".
Jump up ^ "Previous Recipients of the Draper Prize". National Academy of Enginee
ring.
Jump up ^ Illich, Ivan (1971). Deschooling Society. New York, Harper & Row ISBN
0-06-012139-4
Jump up ^ Bates, Tony & Helm, Croom, eds. (1984). The Role of Technology in Dist
ance Education. Retrieved on 15 August 2006.
Jump up ^ Computer Assisted Learning or Communications:
Which Way for Information Technology in Distance Education?
Jump up ^ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/courses/ED750/CSILE_KF_illus.p
df CSILE/Knowledge Forum Scardamalia, M.
Jump up ^ Wallflower at the Web Party, NY Times
Jump up ^ Linked-In profile
Jump up ^ TechCrunch: Nine Ways to Build Your Own Social Network - July 24, 2007
Jump up ^ Kowalski, Robin; Limber, Susan; Agatston, Patricia (2012). Cyberbullyi
ng : Bullying in the Digital Age (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 56 57
. ISBN 9781444334814.
Jump up ^ http://nobullying.com/cyber-bullying-statistics-2014/
External links[edit]
Social Protocols: An Introduction - by Joseph M. Reagle Jr.
IBM Center for Social Software, launched in September 2008
Definition of Social Software and Revised / Simplified Definition of Social Soft
ware by Tom Coates, May 2003 and January 2005
[Castells, Manuel (2000): Toward a Socilaogy of the Network Society/Social Softw
ara (in: Contemporary Socialogy, volume 29, issue 5, pp. 693 699.)
[hide] v t e
Social networks and social media
Types
City Personal Professional Sexual Value
Networks
Distributed social network (list) Enterprise social networking Mobile social net
work Personal knowledge networking
Services
List of social networking websites List of virtual communities with more than 1
million users List of virtual communities with more than 100 million active user
s
Concepts and
theories
Assortative mixing Interpersonal bridge Organizational network analysis Small-wo
rld experiment Social aspects of television Social capital Social data revolutio
n Social exchange theory Social identity theory Social network analysis Social w
eb Structural endogamy
Models and
processes
Aggregation Change detection Collaboration graph Collaborative consumption Giant
Global Graph Lateral communication Social graph Social network analysis softwar
e Social networking potential Social television Structural cohesion
Economics
Collaborative finance Social commerce
Phenomena
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nd Friendship paradox Six degrees of separation Social invisibility Social netwo

rk game Social occultation Tribe
Related topics
Researchers User profile Viral messages Virtual community
Authority control
GND: 7550143-0
Categories: Technology in societySocial information processingSocial software
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