Karl Martino says “paradox1x: Social software can’t be a fad since the WEB is social software“:
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.
…
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.
Can I get an amen?