Social Software Technology Comparison Table
Tim Neumann
at the last session, I promised to post a blog entry with something related to
the Comparison Table in the wiki. Well, I prefer email at the moment (can't
sort out my Wordpress account):
In our comparison table, the technologies are all listed under the umbrella
term "social software". I am having my difficulties with that term - its definition
is quite muddy, probably because it's currently very fashionable and "sexy".
However, I am not even sure what is actually so "social" about some of the
technologies in our list, for example RSS feeds. Are "sharing" and "linking"
sufficient qualifiers for "social"? That would be a bit shallow.
There has been an attempt at categorising "Technologies of Cooperation", and
here, social software is just one of eight categories - interestingly, Wikis,
RSS and Social Bookmarking are NOT in the social software category! If you
have time, have a look at the following map, which goes far beyond our table,
but provides lots of fantastic food for thought, highlighting some issues from
interesting angles (more technology- rather than sociology-oriented) and
helping a great deal with definitions of terms. It's here:
Technologies of Cooperation Map:
http://www.rheingold.com/cooperation/Tech_of_cooperation_map.jpg
Technologies of Cooperation Report:
http://www.rheingold.com/cooperation/Technology_of_cooperation.pdf
Info about Cooperation Commons:
http://www.cooperationcommons.com/
Have a good 4th session!
Tim
P.S.: I actually forgot where I had stored these links - and found them through
Google in my own Learning Technologies Unit blog...duh!