May 4th, 2007

The Web is a Social Creation

by Joshua Porter  |   9 Comments

Tim Berners-Lee, in Weaving the Web:

“The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect—to help people work together—and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner. What we believe, endorse, agree with, and depend on is representable and, increasingly, represented on the Web. We all have to ensure that the society we build with the Web is of the sort we intend.”

This touches on several important issues:

  1. Technology is an enabler, not the end goal
  2. The Web is built to augment our social behavior, not define it
  3. We can represent our social lives online, even ambiguous things like our beliefs
  4. We have a responsibility to make the Web a good place to be

Every time I read Tim’s words, I am reinvigorated and am glad to be part of this thing they call the Web.

Comments ( 9 Responses so far )

1.  pauric on May 4th, 2007 (Comment) #

I would expand the scope of subtly.

Natural selection has chosen social behaviors as beneficial to our success as individuals. Collaboration aids our well being.

The internet released a pent up drive to increase social activity, akin to a dam bursting.

The increasing complexity of social activity on the web is a result of some innate part of our being driving this.

The web is augmenting this activity, it is redefining it and it will produce new ways in which we collaborate, communicate. I beleive it may help redefine who we are, what it means to be an individual in an increasingly connected world.

‘Think global, act local’ can be attributed to our collective awareness on the net. It is changing how we think about our actions and appears to be changing the social discourse as we face up to climate change.

I like this little story http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/05/02/ants-are-stupid-colonies-are-smart/
We appear to be marching towards web 4.0 = human colony.
http://novaspivack.typepad.com/RadarNetworksTowardsAWebOS.jpg

2.  pauric on May 4th, 2007 (Comment) #

expand the scope of point 2, that is

3.  SergKh on May 5th, 2007 (Comment) #

I agree with it. But Web replaces reality life for some people, they more nothing see except Internet. And it badly. It is necessary to fight with it

4.  Aneta | SocialDesignSite on May 6th, 2007 (Comment) #

I fully agree that Web is a very powerful tool not only for social creation but social change. The easiness of communication enables changes not only in the virtual world but foremost in the reality creating awareness of important issues. Exemplifying, check some websites on social design and read what they achieved- that’s the real power. power of networking, communities and Internet.

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5.  ascensia on May 9th, 2007 (Comment) #

is mankind smart?

When i see the discussion about the CO2 - i canT really believe so!

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6.  Ron on June 28th, 2007 (Comment) #

“1. Technology is an enabler, not the end goal”

You should put that in 480 pt font. And Repeat it. And then repeat it again. The most successful web 2.0’s arent about technology, they USE technology - myspace, flickr, youtube. Too much “tech-for-techs-sake” will kill anything quickly.

7.  iç giyim on June 25th, 2008 (Comment) #

thank you

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ABOUT

Bokardo is the blog of Joshua Porter, a web designer/developer, researcher, and writer. I live in Newburyport, MA, USA.

WHAT IS SOCIAL DESIGN?

Social design is design that focuses on the social lives of users. It deals with the activities, behaviors, and motivations of people who work and play together through software interfaces. It is built on the observation that many of the decisions we make are greatly affected by those we surround ourselves with in our social lives: our family, friends, and colleagues. Exploring our motivations and how to design interfaces to support them is what the Bokardo blog is all about.

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