Going Social
Thomas Vander Wal
Presented to: St. Paul’s School
London, England :: 2 October 2007

What is Social
Software?

Services...

People...

Objects...

Sharing...

But essentially

it is all about

My friends

My interests

My sharing

and following.

It is being

We select services…

Where our friends are

Where we can interact

“[The rule-breakers] seem to have an extraordinary set of
traditional and 21st-century skills, including communication,
creativity, collaboration and leadership skills and technology
proficiency”
- 27 September 2007

...most children use the internet for social networking, enabled
by the widespread and free availability of internet tools
that allow people to communicate by creating text, pictures or
videos and sharing them with other people connected to
the web – often referred to as Web 2.0.
- 27 September 2007

Business calls it collaboration

or knowledge sharing

we know it as

communicating.

Sharing and being social
is how we humans got
out of caves

Being social is how we
advance as a society

So far we have:
People
Objects
Interests
Interaction
Sharing & following
Communicating
Collaboration

We have a lot of information

Many layers of information

We need tools for understanding

We share:
Things found
People
Events
Things created
Links
Preference
Status/presence
Media

Cure technology pain

Tech Pain:
Syncing Refinding
Taste
Precision
Ease of use
Portability
Privacy
Attention

Social Software:
Tools and Services

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking:
Links Found things
Have: Identity
Tags
Comments
Ease of use
Solve: Portability
Taste Attention

Tagging &
Other Features

Tagging
Derived Value
Abstracts
Identity
Favorites Long Text Annotation
Titles
Ratings
Work Contributing

The “F” Word

Folksonomy

Folksonomy Definition
❖ Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of pages
and objects for one's own retrieval
❖ The tagging is usually done in a social environment (shared
and open to others)
❖ The act of tagging is done by the person consuming the
information

Folksonomy Triad
Object Identity
Interest
Definition
Vocabulary
Metadata

Dual Folksonomy Triad
Object Interest Identity
Culture Vocabulary
Definition
Terminology
Community Metadata

Finding More Objects
Object 1 Identity Object 2
Metadata

Self & Others
Refind links annotated in your understanding
Others with similar understanding
and interest find info
Connect and collaborate with
people with similar interests
Access your info from any browser

Your Annotation

Social Bookmarking
Gets Social

Apple Group
(public/private)
Top Tags
Recent
Bookmarks
Recent
Discussions
Group
Members

Using the Power
of Your Network

Getting to Real
Relationships

Spheres of Sociality
Mob
Collective
Selective
Personal

Directional Sociality

Not All
Relationships
Are Equal

Real Relationships
Self Friend
Self Friend
Self Friend
Self Acquaintance
Self ? ? Stranger

Unequal Access
Public
Private

Approaching
Real Relationships
Share Share
Listen
Public Private
Friend A X X
Friend B X X X
Friend C X X
Acquaintance A X X
Acquaintance B X

Granular Listening

The Social Network

Social Networking:
Status Created things
Have: Collaboration
Identity Comments
Ease of use
Solve: Privacy
Taste Attention

Important Social Bits
Events Refinding
Extracting
People
Ease of use
Portability
Privacy
Attention

Information is good

but, we need to be able
to do something with
the information

Twitter has Favorites

We know there is
incredible power and
value from social
software

Social software is not
perfect, but it is always
improving

Thank you!

URL: http://infocloudsolutions.com
E-mail: thomas@infocloudsolutions.com
E-mail: thomas@vanderwal.net
AIM: vanderwal
Skype: tjvanderwal
InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - 2007