Social Software Building Blocks

I recently came across a wonderful post regarding the building blocs of social software.  Gene Smith, from nForm, has brought to light work done from Matt Webb and Stewart Butterfield that defines seven element of social software.  These include:

• Identity - a way of uniquely identifying people in the system
• Presence - a way of knowing who is online, available or otherwise nearby
• Relationships - a way of describing how two users in the system are related (e.g. in Flickr, people can be contacts, friends of family)
• Conversations - a way of talking to other people through the system
• Groups - a way of forming communities of interest
• Reputation - a way of knowing the status of other people in the system (who's a good citizen? who can be trusted?)
• Sharing - a way of sharing things that are meaningful to participants (like photos or videos)

The above list is a nice filter when exploring how people use Web 2.0 software systems to address there personal and social needs.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive