1 ZeitGeist

This stuff is interesting. I watched a movie called ZeitGeist Addendum, and it talks about social architecture. I really think the most important part about all this new-fangled social media is the fact that a new form of monetization will emerge, and our society’s media sector will transform.

posted at 03:51 am on March 3, 2009 by Florida Web Design

2 Not where my friends live...

I can’t decide whether it’s good or bad that this sounds like the Facebook feature list! That’s not a criticism of the article (in case it sounds like one). I’!ve just spent a lot of time recently thinking about the way different social networking apps appeal to different people, and it always comes back to Facebook! More specifically, the fact that its success seems to come down to a ‘Jack-of-all-Trades’ approach – offering non-portable, cut-down versions of services like Flickr, Twitter, etc.

People familiar with the web (probably including everyone here) are happy to go out of their way for the advantages of these more open services. But my old college mates, distant family, and whatever are more likely to sign up to one service that does everything adequately.

I just find all this interesting to look at in the context of the article’s ‘main streets and backwaters’ metaphor. Although I’d like to share my Tweets and Flickr content with everyone I know, I have to ask them to ‘travel’ right out of their way. And often, that just isn’t happening. A centralised identity would obviously help here – being able to use an OpenID (for example) to accumulate reputation between services and make signing up to a new service quick and simple. In a small way, this idea has been taken on by the current generation of games consoles – using a single profile to collect ‘acheivements’ and maintain a single identity between all games, as well as giving external access to that data through APIs and the like.

Anyway, thank you for a thought-provoking extract. I’ll definitely be picking up the book very soon.

I really think the most important part about all this new-fangled social media is the fact that a new form of monetization will emerge, and our society’s media sector will transform.

Well, I think that is something that happened years ago. Also not sure what you mean by a new form of monetization – looked very much like the old sort! Get people in one place, looking in direction, and then put ads there :)

posted at 09:06 am on March 3, 2009 by andi farr

3 Great article

The psychology behind the dynamics of social architecture are fascinating. I think its vitally important to understand how social interactions happen offline, to better understand how online social behavior lives, breaths and dies. Understanding the interaction points will help us design better websites from the side of the consumer, and also increase conversion rate for the business by giving the consumer what they want.

posted at 03:44 pm on March 3, 2009 by Bill Ross

4 Webciety

A nice summary for the major points for social architecture. But it is difficult in such a short article to fulfill every single brick, which is important for the complete house.
You article comes right to “Webciety”, which is spotlight of this years cebit.

posted at 02:36 pm on March 4, 2009 by Katja Schiemann

5 Continually Impressed

I think this is an oustanding article and I’ll even take things one step further.

When designing social sites I think it is vitally important that there be a consistent architect, whether that is a person or a “voice”.

There is nothing worse for first time tourists than a city with 30 different areas, all constructed independantly of one another.

To translate that to the online world (specifically design), a rule that applies on one area of your site should also apply on another area. People come to rely on the tools you initially give them as structure and an orientation mechanism. Even if you think a separate page of your site should be able to have different rules catered just to that page, one must keep in mind the entire user experience, and the behaviour those users are expecting.

posted at 08:06 pm on March 4, 2009 by Chris Meeks

6 superb

Great and very useful article. I think the social architecture and the psychology behind is ver interesting. I introduced myself in the world of the social networks for a quite long time already and this article does a very close overview. I have a project called Cine25.com and it’s a vertical social network site of cinema (in spanish). When i started the project i was very inmature in this “social world” and didn’t have in mind some of the basic points that this article exposed. But the project evolved, as i evolved with him, specially with articles like this one. I still have a lot of work trying to lead this project to the correct path, but that’s the beauty of it i guess.

(sorry for my bad english)

posted at 03:46 pm on March 5, 2009 by Michael Regalado

7 Interesting Article!

There is so much of psychology and dynamics sytudy at play behind social architecture. The social architecture is prompts the users to bring out their personalities in the online world without even them realizing that they are revaling too much of themselves. Good social architecture can go a long way in making the web a safer place!

posted at 08:43 am on March 6, 2009 by Maneet Puri

8 Will We Be In Totally in The Social Clouds in 3-5

This article is so interesting to ponder. Where will we be in just a few short years? We’re having so much fun watching the social media landscape change while we play in the Cloud Computing space. Keep writing…please, and we’ll keep architechting!

posted at 01:37 am on March 10, 2009 by Angie Swartz

9 Web 2.0 in a Nutshell

As Andri Farr had said, “Get people in one place, looking in direction, and then put ads there”

It is basically what most Web 2.0 entrepreneur aim for.

To clarify Web 2.0, it is bringing people together, and having those people generate content for you.

This is one of the “core” concept to “The Elements of Social Architecture”.

It as if we were Car engineers.

And to quote Chris Meeks take on the element: “People come to rely on the tools you initially give them as structure and an orientation mechanism.”

Not only do we give them a tool, we give them a environment, a isolated place where anyone can reach and have one common interest.

Thus:

“Bring People together with a common interest, give them something that is in common with them, and see what happens”

posted at 06:47 am on March 11, 2009 by Henry Tran

10 Pattern Language

I was excited to find this. Inspired by Doug Schuler’s work on a pattern language for communication (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//009356.html), I recently started gathering notes and thoughts for a social web pattern language. It’s great to see that someone’s already done some of this work. It would be worthwhile to create an open project around it, similar to Schuler’s (http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/) but focused on the social web.

posted at 11:17 am on March 12, 2009 by Jon Lebkowsky