Social Architecture: Modeling the Next Generation

Social Architecture: Modeling the Next GenerationSean Madden

Webvisions 2007, Portland OR

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Social networks have revolutionized the way people

think about software, from both the business and consumer

perspective

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Passion Centricvs.

Passion Agnostic

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

I Love @#&!

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Shaun the Stylist

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

The Social Software Toolbox

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Tagging

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Tagging is reinventing information architecture as we know it

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Tags create a highly-malleable cataloguing system

Tags communicate “meta data” to the masses

Tags are easy

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Voting

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

“... I suspect in a matter of a few years a Web page without a dynamic ratings system attached

will trigger the same response that a Web page without hyperlinks triggers today”

Stephen B. Johnson Emergence

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

People understand voting

Voting promotes trust and believability

Voting enables the community to decide what it feels is important

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Extension

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Extension empowers your users

Extension increases stickiness

Extension establishes credibility and exhibits confidence

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Customization

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Customization in the social space represents an entirely new software paradigm

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Customization allows for self-expression

Customization increases sense of ownership

Customization is a di!erentiator

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

All of these combine to form what are being called

self-organizing systems

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Purposeful Self-Organization

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Tagging is a conscious choice, it is work

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Voting pushes towards the mean, it does not organize

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

In its current state, customization is too manual

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Ironically, these tools detract from the primary goals of our systems

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

The next generation of social systems should organize information without inhibiting the acts

of creating and consuming

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Ubiquitous Computing

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Ubiquitous computing is a model of computing in which computer functions are integrated into everyday life, often in an invisible way

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

It is not only inevitable, it is already here

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Mobile Phones

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

QR Codes

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Locality

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Aside from designing directly for it, we can learn from its basic principles

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Calm Technology

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Beautiful Seams

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

A point of presence becomes a field of presence

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Enabling our networks to leverage ubiquitous computing will reduce the cognitive load required

to achieve the desired task

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Emergence

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

An emergent system is one of great complexity that is created without oversight from a “master

designer” and comes about through agents following their own set of simple, local rules

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Ants

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

More is di!erentIgnorance is usefulEncourage random encountersLook for patternsPay attention to your neighbors

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Truly emergent organization can be hard to pin to human behavior

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

But we can start working towards it

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Newsvine Groups

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Pattern Matching / Behavior Recognition

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

The Genetic Algorithm

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

The outer boundaries of today’s systems are defined by our own intellectual limitations

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Release the prioritization / creation of our back-end systems to the community in the same manner as we have released our IA through

tagging

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Create a base set of rules and let the community grow /cultivate them through use

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

A crowd is at its wisest when it is:

Diverse, Independent,Decentralized, and Aggregated

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Purposeful Self-Organization becomes...

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Emergent Organization

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

It’s already here in some capacity

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

An emergent system is a less bounded system

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

It is time to take the next step forward and stop putting the hard problems o! to another day

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

Social Networks have limitless potential, but we need to work towards designing them that way

Webvisions 2007 Social Architecture May 3rd, 2007

AcknowledgmentsSpecial Thanks ToJasmyn Madden, Nick Finck, Valerie Casey, Je! Veen, Tom Watson, Jina Bolton, Mykola Bilokonsky

Photo Credits

http://flickr.com/photos/74833619@N00/93440933/http://flickr.com/photos/boogah/151536846/http://flickr.com/photos/damgaard/449566520/http://flickr.com/photos/add/187811645/http://flickr.com/photos/catskillsgrrl/99502267/http://flickr.com/photos/whateverthing/128106986/