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Thursday April 26, 2007

Social Software Building Blocks

When surfing around this morning and trying to get all my email read, I found this post from Gene Smith about Social Software.

A list of building blocks was originally assembled by Matt Webb who was building on a list from Stewart Butterfield The elements are

Identity: who people are
Presence: where people are
Relationships: how are people related
Conversations: a way to let people communicate through the system
Groups: a way to self affiliate
Reputation: the trust factor, a way for the community to give input into how this person interacts in the community good or bad
Sharing: a way to allow others to see/use/acquire/riff on/etc. artifacts created by the individuals

I find it helpful to think about these building blocks as we continue to evolve our online experiences at Sun for people that interact with us.

Posted by evoljennifer ( Apr 26 2007, 07:08:50 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [3]

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Comments:

Great list -- every online community manager or builder should measure their online experiences using these elements.

Posted by Lou O on April 26, 2007 at 10:28 AM MDT #

Don't forget about when (think about events or triggers that bring people together) and how (the varied mechanisms that bring people together, like audio, video, text, photograph, etc). Also, not to be argumentative, but I tend to think of presence and location as two entirely distinct concepts. Presence involves capability, availability and openness to communication _regardless_ of location (think how much you care where I am when you IM me, for I could be at home, on a client site, at Panera, in my car, etc). Location, on the other hand, involves a definitive GPS / elevation (think the space of space'n'time).

Posted by Nathan on April 26, 2007 at 07:33 PM MDT #

You are right. Presence is much broader than 'where people are'. (By the way that was my interpretation of the word presence not Matt, Stewart, or Gene :) ) Location may not matter as much but definitely comes into play for some social software that works with offline components in offline experiences. I like adding a time notion with 'when'. However that does not always apply as you can participate at different times.

Posted by Jennifer b. on April 27, 2007 at 08:09 AM MDT #

Social Software Building Blocks

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