Comments on: Are Social Web Apps Here to Stay?

By: Traces of Inspiration » Blog Archive » Re: Nine Questions and Answers Students Want to Know about Social Media Before they Enter the Workforce

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:08:18 +0000

[...] Are Social Web Apps Here to Stay? [...]

By: 7daysandmore» Blog Archive » Why I don’t Use Social Software

7daysandmore» Blog Archive » Why I don’t Use Social Software — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:23:30 +0000

[...] Are Social Web Apps Here to Stay? [...]

By: UIE Brain Sparks » Blog Archive » Birth of a New Specialty: Social Networking Design

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:51:18 +0000

[...] My colleague, Josh Porter, had an interesting take on all this over at his Bokardo blog: In general, computers and software are taking an increasingly social role for us. Our behavior hasn’t become all that much more social (although it certainly has for some) but we’re learning how to effectively model our social needs in software. Three years ago the social aspects of software was email and chat messaging. Now, it’s forging online identity as profiles and embedded messaging within applications. It’s become always-on, which means that there is no distinction between “offline” and “online” anymore. We are not just modeling messaging, we’re modeling presence as well. This is a big shift…and our language reflects it. I’m “on MySpace” means that we are figuratively and literally on the site. [...]

By: Kapusta Brothers » Blog Archive » Web Apps: The Future

Kapusta Brothers » Blog Archive » Web Apps: The Future — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 12:32:06 +0000

[...] So the question really is does anyone really know what the next big thing is until its already popular? How do we know it’s not going to be a fad, and are social networks here to stay? [...]

By: Are Social Media “the Tardis in Reverse?” « Media SITREP

Are Social Media “the Tardis in Reverse?” « Media SITREP — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 02:56:36 +0000

[...] Joshua Porter takes a different slant, citing Ryan Carson’s Why I Don’t Use Social Software: Ryan is right, most folks outside the teenage demographic don’t have time to spend actively seeking out new social networking tools. Instead, if we did hear about it we would probably find out by someone else telling us or by somehow inviting us to participate…If we look at the history of software, we see that it trends toward modeling human behavior (as I’ve mentioned before)…I quoted Wil Wright recently, and I think he’s (pardon the pun) right on. First thought of as super calculators, computers are now part of the social fabric of our lives. They are becoming integral to how we communicate with our family, friends, and colleagues. They’re still doing calculations of course, but the software that we’ve designed for them is all about human-to-human contact. Social contact. And since we’re social animals in the end, the trend of modeling this in software won’t be reversing any time soon. [...]

By: Social Web Apps « Techliner

Social Web Apps « Techliner — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:02:28 +0000

[...] Bokardo writes: In general, computers and software are taking an increasingly social role for us. Our behavior hasn’t become all that much more social (although it certainly has for some) but we’re learning how to effectively model our social needs in software. Three years ago the social aspects of software was email and chat messaging. Now, it’s forging online identity as profiles and embedded messaging within applications. It’s become always-on, which means that there is no distinction between “offline” and “online” anymore. We are not just modeling messaging, we’re modeling presence as well. This is a big shift…and our language reflects it. I’m “on MySpace” means that we are figuratively and literally on the site. [...]

By: Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation and the Web » Blog Archive » The Problem with Social Software

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:18:05 +0000

[...] Joshua Porter offers further thoughts. [...]

By: Jared Spool

Jared Spool — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 11:11:51 +0000

Well, depending on your definition, you can go back a lot further than that. I used a predecessor to Lotus Notes called DECNotes back in 1982.

By: haydn

haydn — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:37:14 +0000

If you lookback five years there were social nextworks evolving - only they were called collaboration software - Groove for example now part of Microsoft. This stuff ahs actuallyhad a long difficult birth.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:07:57 +0000

Nice article — Web 2.0 apps have been the subject of debate on a lot of sites recently. People are starting to think a bit more clearly about things as the rise of Web 2.0 becomes more evident. I know this was about social web apps in general but I think the question should apply to just Web 2.0 in general.

I believe like tiffany said, social networking sites will always be around, and other services may be around for awhile but a person really has to be careful against their competition and about what services they choose to start up.

Google may have made it with their business model but it isn’t an easy thing to do — takes a lot of strategetic planning, motivation, desire, some luck, and a great idea to make it all happen.

By: tiffany

tiffany — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:06:58 +0000

i think they’re here to stay in that there will always be someone using them. the community connect group of sites has been around for a decade.

which site is the hot hangout will ebb and flow in much the same way hot bars ebb and flow. blackplanet.com (one of community connect’s sites), for example, was the equivalent of MySpace for young black people between 1999 and 2001. when you met someone they asked “what’s your BlackPlanet name?” now it’s “what’s your MySpace name?”

people will drop in and out of the community. and the community may disappear. but i think the actual genre of “social networking sites” will always be around.

By: Jared Spool

Jared Spool — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:54:44 +0000

Personally, I think social networking is an infrastructure element, not an application to itself.

In the dawning days of the web, we had lots of “directories” which, had we been smart enough, we could’ve classified as “information architecture apps.” But the web directory has all but disappeared, yet information architecture lives on.

One of my favorite examples of social networking is Netflix. You invite your friends and they become part of your Netflix experience. You can see how they rated movies, separate from the unknown crowds of other Netflix users. You can send them little messages telling them which movies to watch and which to avoid. You can see what’s in their queue and what they’ve recently watched.

When enabled, the social networking portion of Netflix is as powerful as many of the social web app sites we see today, yet it’s power is in its integration with the existing infrastructure. I think that’s the future of social web apps.