Social Software
Sunday, May 23rd, 2004
As more and more people comment about the recent uproar caused by a change in the licensing of the weblog software, MovableType, the comments range further and further into the meta issues. Here’s one of the better ones I’ve read so far:
“The dilemma for people who build communal tools is this: if you want something that hooks people emotionally, you cannot have rational users, and vice-versa. And when you build a tool that helps create a social fabric, changes to the tool trigger social anxieties. Always.”
It isn’t just weblogging software that works like this; it’s even more aparent with threaded discussion software like Ultimate Bulletin Board or VBulletin or phpBB. Once the community happens and people are hooked things get emotional unllike the kind of emotion one has for a personal tool like a word processor. The meta issues are here fascinating and tracking them and how this evolves is something I plan to do. I may even have to make a new category in this weblog called “social software” or “virtual communities.”
