Social software can’t be a fad since the WEB is social software

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I’m rather disappointed in the round of discussion I’m reading following Ryan Carson’s piece at Vitamin: “Why I don’t use social software”.

It’s a thought provoking piece, but along with responses to it I’ve read, from Phil Edwards, Nick Carr, Mathew Ingram, Kent Newsome, for example, they seem to share the same fallacy – that social software is new. That it is a recent phenomenon. That what Digg, del.icio.us, Netscape.com, and MySpace represent is something fundamentally different then what’s come before and that we need to beware the hype.

Just like these writers, I’m tired of the hype as well, but to suggest that these services represent something new, is to fall for it. Even to inflate it. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web, it would appear, agrees. From the article’s referenced transcript :

LANINGHAM: You know, with Web 2.0, a common explanation out there is Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making information available; and Web 2 is about connecting people and facilitating new kinds of collaboration. Is that how you see Web 2.0?

BERNERS-LEE: Totally not. Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.

And in fact, you know, this Web 2.0, quote, it means using the standards which have been produced by all these people working on Web 1.0. It means using the document object model, it means for HTML and SVG and so on, it’s using HTTP, so it’s building stuff using the Web standards, plus Java script of course.

So Web 2.0 for some people it means moving some of the thinking client side so making it more immediate, but the idea of the Web as interaction between people is really what the Web is. That was what it was designed to be as a collaborative space where people can interact.

To ask if “Social Media” is a passing fancy is to ask if Amazon.com or eBay are passing fancies. To ask if Slashdot is a passing fancy. To ask if the Web itself is a passing fancy.

As I mentioned over in Nick Carr’s comment thread, these aren’t the examples branded about by the media, or by the digerati these days.

The conversation seems to have no groundings in what’s come before, and in what’s already been established:

Those who remember the empowering effects of Netscape and the moment email became more than just borrowing your mate’s CompuServe account at work will also recognize such blanket assertions of historical revisionism for what they are.

The fact is the most successful web services – since the beginnings of the web – were social software applications. The Web’s participatory architecture lends itself to them. It’s always been a Two Way web as Dave Winer would say.

We’re simply seeing an evolution of what’s come before. The revolution is that so much of it has become mainstream (MySpace is mainstream) and the barriers to launching a service that incorporates participation have fallen so low. Not that there is some new fangled set of features that everyone must go out and implement to stay relevant.

Knocking some hot air out of the hype is warranted. Some of these newer services resemble those dot coms that launched in the late nineties that didn’t grasp what Amazon.com, eBay, Blogger, and others, were *really* doing. You know, those sites that thought if they had a clever domain name, niche, and a particular set of features, they were on their way to riches.

And it looks like today’s media hype resembles that late nineties hysteria in more then a few respects. Just listen to Rob Hersov, then boss of Sportal, in a Guardian look back on the Dot Com Crash:

Those were incredibly heady days,” he says. “Fun – absolutely. We thought we were making a difference. We thought we were getting out there, shaking things up, doing something no one had done before. We really were pioneers – buccaneers.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

But there is something to be concerned about here. That the words “social software” and “social media” become part of a lexicon that represents a massive failure up the road. And that will obscure an important set of truths.

I worked for a company, which was already far ahead of the curve, prior to the Dot Com Crash. It looked at the failures of that era as an indicator that the Web as a whole wasn’t a place to continue to invest as heavily.

What a mistake that was. And now it no longer exists.

By and large it was “social media” that survived the original dot com crash. And I expect that, by and large again, the best “social media” will survive whenever next bubble pops.

So when the next time of reckoning comes, and it will, look at what lives on. And think about why.

Burn this in your brain – the Web *is* social software.

And re-read “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” while you’re at it.

I have an idea for a great Survivor – lets divide teams by religion. Muslims, versus Jews, versus Christians, versus Atheists – sounds great don’t it?

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Sounds ludicrous right? Not really. Because that’s where Survivor is going to need to go to top the concept behind this year’s series – dividing the tribes up by race. Yes you read that right. By blacks, whites, Asians, and Hispanics.

I’m a free speech absolutist. I don’t believe in the suppression of it whatsoever. And I’m as un-politically correct as they come. Sam Kinison and George Carlin are my favorite comedians. South Park is one of my favorite shows. So never would I advocate banning or fining this.

The FCC is no friend to free speech.

So why be concerned or upset? I’ve talked to people in my line of work who don’t feel the way I do. That this will be great TV. That generating any kind of discussion is good. And this last sentiment is one I always agree with.

But they don’t come from where *I* come from. They don’t know by what rationale my old neighbors will decide who to root for. And when “our” race’s members lose – it will be talk of conspiracy and bias.

And hey, Survivor’s Jeff Probst pretty much admits this in a recent interview. Watch it.

Survivor isn’t a comedy. It’s a competition in the hearts of its fans, and in the minds of some social scientists and economists. It’s producers call the show a social experiment. Check out the ongoing conversation about Game Theory and how it applies to Survivor. So is it really surprising that this season is already being thought of as “Survivor: Race War”? No. Not at all. It’s to be expected.

A dark part of me admires the marketing genius behind it. The degree to which the show’s producers will go to get ratings. Sure the season will sprinkle heart warming lessons in a few episodes. And they will move to integrate the tribes within two or three shows and those that integrate the best, supposedly, will do the best. But that does nothing to change this show’s exploitive starting point – segregated tribes – and it will be that, which sets the tone for the audience.

And bring in the viewers.

Are they holding a mirror to the reality of American society? Maybe.

But I can’t help but feel this story joins a growing number of race and racism related stories surfacing in the news. Stories that, when coupled with rising crime and poverty figures, set us back to the early nineties – at least.

This, at a time, when real bridges must be built, and re-built, between members of different races, different religions, different classes, and different sexes, and different political parties.

Ask yourself, does this Survivor season help or hurt fight the realities that Katrina exposed? The story of Katrina is one of race, class, and indifferent government and society.

Does it help? Or does it exploit?

There is a difference. Think about it.

From my point of view, there seem to be too many damn people are busy dividing us, to sell us something.

Too damn many.