Social software’s expanding scope
Social software is continually spreading in scope and functionality. Previously we looked at how facebook can be decentralised and it’s functionality owned by individuals; and we outlined a stack of services and upstream RSS and API syndication that can implement this already.
Our electronic representations are evolving, though; while our first few generations of social software have given us simple social networks and grouping features, they exist in the old internet, the geography-busting utopia of the 90s. As our electronic representations weave increasingly into our offline lives, aspects of our corporeality must feed back into our electronic selves if they are to make any sense. What liberated us with the original web, what gave us Amazon and eBay and communities united by interest not location, are being rediscovered as aspects of our new presences. We are learning again that it would be nice to meet our electronic friends face-to-face, to use our software to help us better socialise in the real world than simply exchange packets.
To this end, a number of services are appearing which inject location into the social representation stack. Fire Eagle, Yahoo’s location notification service, recently posted a list of services that integrate with their system (as well as emphasising the point that they’re not a first-order social network service, instead choosing to concentrate on providing broad-but-shallow locative services as part of the stack to other social software).
Appendix
As my aims are different from Fire Eagle’s, it makes sense for me to replicate their list here; mine will expand to include geographic services which are not necessarily associated with Fire Eagle. I’d like to thank them for a useful starting point.
Location broadcasting services
- Fire Eagle (invitation only)
Hybrid location and social networking
- Dopplr
- Plazes
- BrightKite (invitation only)
- Zkout