91 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
title: 'BlogTalk Reloaded 1.1'
|
||
date: '2006-10-02T01:37:00-04:00'
|
||
permalink: /blogtalk-reloaded-11/
|
||
tags:
|
||
- conferences
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
I’m going to attempt to blog as much of the conference as I can. This is the usual caveat about the fact that what follows is my notes from these talks; any flaws in my representations of papers or conversations are mine, and not those of the presenters.
|
||
|
||
Opening keynote: danah boyd, “The Significance of Social Software”
|
||
|
||
(tags: [blogtalkreloaded](http://technorati.com/tag/blogtalkreloaded))
|
||
|
||
what is social software? in 2002, shirky claims term to apply to “all uses of software that support interacting groups, even if the interaction is offline” (Allan)
|
||
|
||
applications of term focused strictly on new, ignoring previous forms of online interaction (muds, moos, etc.); also ignored corporate groupware uses
|
||
|
||
shirky: social software as “anything worth spamming”; tom coates: “software that supports, extends…”
|
||
|
||
examples: blogs, social network sites, media sharing systems, wikis, tagging, mashups, etc
|
||
|
||
people got annoyed: ignored history and important older forms
|
||
|
||
danah restricting her use of term to post-tech bust uses (“web 2.0”)
|
||
|
||
three changes created by social software: design, spread of participation, social behavior
|
||
|
||
argues friendster killed the previous uses of terms like “beta” and “version 2.1” — moved away from engineering model of software releases to a definition of beta that meant “not yet profitable”
|
||
|
||
traditional design process: slow, bureaucratic, painful; many entrepreneurs and developers said they didn’t want to work that way
|
||
|
||
folks behind myspace decided to do friendster better; hacked together a piece of software based on coldfusion, invited friends, people who got kicked off friendster, etc; no spec, no legal, no marketing — just shipped (in 2 months!)
|
||
|
||
what happened next? shipped, and then asked “let’s see how people use it”; asked users what they wanted; launched feature after feature based on what people want — all hacks, not traditionally developed; no quality assurance team
|
||
|
||
set of values of social software world:
|
||
|
||
— hack it up, get it out there
|
||
|
||
— learn from your users; evolve the system with them
|
||
|
||
— make your presence known, invite feedback
|
||
|
||
— monetization? add a few ads here and there
|
||
|
||
pros and cons to this approach
|
||
|
||
— horribly unstable code
|
||
|
||
— but gets outside the lab-driven context of human-computer interaction; focuses instead on human-human interaction
|
||
|
||
what happens when crowds come is very different from what individuals do; anything that can be fucked with, will
|
||
|
||
values are built into software
|
||
|
||
example: flickr — developers introduced themselves to all early users, said hello, asked why they were there and what they wanted; created context of community
|
||
|
||
such values are often tech-centered, at least at first (see delicious, digg)
|
||
|
||
where things go wrong (?): orkut (part of google; known as brazilian site?)
|
||
|
||
originally invite-only, mostly tech folks; quickly went to bloggers, but by that point, bloggers were sick of social network sites, so they paid little attention; some bay area brazilians were invited, they invited more brazilians; some kind of flag-based competition that drove more brazilians to join — google was clueless
|
||
|
||
later tried to spread to india — has now replicated caste structure — google still clueless
|
||
|
||
ways that cultures set norms for behavior in spaces
|
||
|
||
impossibility of speaking in multiple registers at once — example of stokely carmichael
|
||
|
||
terror in us about myspace; teenagers behaving like teenagers, not attempting to communicate with adults around them, alarms adults
|
||
|
||
social software shifts internet use from interest-driven (usenet model) to friend/community-driven — but such a system begins to fall apart when the scale gets too large
|
||
|
||
example: facebook — moving outside the college/university context caused protest and anxiety
|
||
|
||
how far can things scale?
|
||
|
||
interestingly, blogs are the only form of social software that has scaled well, in part because each blog is individual, and networks that form among bloggers are separately developed
|
||
|
||
concluding questions:
|
||
|
||
— designers — what are costs of chaotic design processes, and how can the processes be used most effectively?
|
||
|
||
— researchers — what are the implications for people’s daily lives (?)
|
||
|
||
— busness folks — are there ways to rethink scaling process without killing communities?
|
||
|
||
tendency to celebrate new and forget old has costs — things social software folks can learn from older forms like MUDs and MOOs
|
||
|