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Tracing the Evolution of Social Software

Posted by michael on from the alacrity-fitzhugh dept.

ChristopherRayAllen writes "I have just posted an article on the history of terminology associated with collaboration software in my Life With Alacrity blog: The term 'social software', which is now used to define software that supports group interaction, has only become relatively popular within the last two or more years. However, the core ideas of social software itself enjoy a much longer history, running back to Vannevar Bush's ideas about 'memex' in 1945, and traveling through terms such as Augmentation, Groupware, and CSCW in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. By examining the many terms used to describe today's 'social software' we can also explore the origins of social software itself, and see how a very real life cycle centers around the use of technical terminology."

5 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Thats all good but.. by essreenim · · Score: 3, Interesting

    social software', which is now used to define software that supports group interaction, has only become relatively popular within the last two or more years. ..what about software to collaberate our lives as well - not just our software endeavoures? Think of the changes that could happen if the philosophy of free software spread into all other industries, services etc ...

  2. If you want good social software by mpost4 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Look at Casos at cmu they pull in all parts of social stuff to explore Social Networks, they have socilaity, CS, physics, etc... I am personaly like Vista, but I am very bias to that program..

  3. Re:What about us? by coconutstudio · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Another huge area is online gaming. People can interact with each other virtually in Everquest universe that seems to parallel the reality.

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  4. Buzzword? by TrollBridge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I guess companies couldn't sell enough "Collaboration Software", so they just same up with a new, trendy-sounding buzzword.

    *YAWN*

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  5. Re:Do not forget about the classic BBS. by wintermute740 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was thinking the exact same thing. The BBS community is still quite alive and well via telnet, but it isn't quite the same. When the BBS scene was more localized, there was always the chance that some you'd meet some random person on the street and already know them from the BBS scene. Not much chance of that happening these days with the telnet BBS scene.

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