I’ve never enjoyed coming up with pithy terms, labels or titles. While i loathe this form of production, i recognize that articles need a title and a phenomenon needs a label. We need common language to talk particular issues or…

On the origins of social software, computer mediated communication, and why for me “social software” is software that concerns itself with socially negotiated truths.

On the origins of social software, computer mediated communication, and why for me “social software” is software that concerns itself with socially negotiated truths.

CMC helps in that it moves the focus to “communication” from software. But it still bugs me.

It’s that first “C” — “computer.” My grandfather and my little cousin think “computer” = either a laptop or a desktop computer. To them “computer” doesn’t bring to mind mobile phones, cars, games, cameras, speakers, music players, supermarket scanners, or the rest of the digital sensors and displays and audio thingies that already pervade our environments. “Computer” evokes some physical box that you hunch down in front of for long periods of time to get things done. A “computer” is supposed to be focused on to the exclusion of the people and things nearby.

Isn’t the term “digital” widely recognized now? People see it as covering all sorts of electronics, some of which can talk to other electronics, many of which do their thing without people having to devote much attention to them.

I like “digitally enhanced X” or (when addressing geeks and business types) “digitally mediated Y.” That’s still pretty stilted; in a sense they’re more stilted than “social software.” But at least X or Y is the focus — whether X/Y is journalism or placemaking or activism or games or travel or honey buckets or whatever is the human activity at hand.

I’m glad to see the focus shifting from “work” as in Computer Supported Cooperative Work, which sounds creepy and not very hopeful..

On the origins of social software, computer mediated communication, and why for me “social software” is software that concerns itself with socially negotiated truths.

In the origins of social software, computer mediated communication, and why for me “social software” is software that concerns itself with socially negotiated truths.

In the origins of social software, computer mediated communication, and why for me “social software” is software that concerns itself with socially negotiated truths.

“One thing to note is that the phrase ‘social software’ doesn’t appear on jot’s site, and none of the people who talk to each other using that phrase appear to be involved. Do you think this will hurt them?”

Obviously, I was tweaking the SocialText gang a bit — the intent was gentle, tho we seem to see a little firestorm of dialogue forming around my teeny spark.

‘Networks’ points specifically at relationships. We can’t use the term social networks, because it has been pre-empted to refer to support of *specific* networks of people online. That’s ok.

But, again, the real question is – why any such term? Computers have been used for communication and social interaction since forever. What is the gain in the term? And, more importantly, when we talk to larger groups of people — where is *their* gain from such a term?

I got my own blog now and i realize it takes time to write meaninful blog entries.

sorry: (heartfelt sorry with a hope towards cyberforgiveness: i will keep my post to almost nil, exept for what intersects with my scattered brain)

stef