Social Software; nothing without context

Having had a little experience with the social software community, what strikes me is its lack of focus on a business level. In the Netherlands we have a saying: “It is like a bucket full of frogs, they jump in all directions if disturbed”. I am not saying it’s an exact analogy, because on some level there always is a focus, but there seldom is one on a business level.

People in the social software community talk about weak links being the best catalyst for the value of a network, most of my weak links are outside of this community. The Netherlands being the country with the highest broad band connections in the world doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its fair share of digibetism. Most of the people I talk to use a PC and can answer their e-mail, use a browser and possibly a word processor, but that’s about it. Whenever I talk about using the web as a tool to find, connect and explore with other people their eyes glaze over.

I think there are two major reasons for this. The first is the fear of using technology; the second is the lack of context in most networks. Regarding the use of technology we apparently have some ways to go to make things intuitive and easy to use for those who have not grown up with a computer in the house. Spamming and identity theft do not help in pulling people over the threshold. Blogging on this site is a nice example of improvement in the usability area. It used to take just as long if not longer to post pieces on a site as it took to write them. Now it is write it and publish! Then again, I already know how to use a word processor which gives me the edge over those who may have far more interesting things to say, but do not know how to use one. The good news is, because of the apparent success of Wiki’s and blogs the industry is finally looking at ease of use from a user’s perspective instead of adapting the best technology solution to how it must be used.

Context is something almost as illusive. Can it be created, or do the members of a community have to create it themselves? Chicken and egg problem, or do we meet in the middle? A good example is wikipedia, the context is a library/encyclopedia and an index is used as reference model. People just hopped on, because they recognized the context and know how to use the reference model. Why is LinkedIn still successful and is friendster struggling? Probably because one is grounded in the context of finding a job and offers a meeting place for employer and employee to find each other, the other is just about meeting each other. To me the latter is not good enough, why would I go there? It is just too spontaneous; I get too many irrelevant requests; I loose interest too quickly, it burns hot and fizzles out. My 'free' cooperation depends on whether I see myself reflected in the network (identify with the context) and what I get out of the network compared to what I put in.

The message is that ease of use is needed to make web based social solutions available to all, better protection against spam and identity theft is needed to convince them to use it and context is needed to create communities around and go the distance. To keep your eye on the ball you need to do all. They are best done by a group that includes people to create the right interface, know how to secure it and people who know the context the network is created for. So watch your weak links, there may be people out there who can help you set up social software solutions within the context they identify with!