Web 2.0 Expo Berlin -

Better Media Plumbing for the Social Web

9:00 - 9:50AM on Wednesday, October 22 in A3-4

While there has been a nearly infinite amount of talk about Web 2.0—like the rise of social networks, the emergence of new models of mediated online social interaction (like Twitter and Facebook)—the bedrock of social media seems relatively unchanged. Blogs are still pretty much stuck in a Web 1.0 timewarp, limited to the now-tired model of chronological posts with embedded comments and a variety of widgets in the margins that hint at new forms of sociality (like MyBlogLog, Sphere, Technorati, or live chat). The rapid adoption of RSS readers suggested that even in the Web 1.0 days, people were dissatisfied with the the difficulties related to experiencing blogs as they are natively published. Now, the rise of Web 2.0 and its significantly accelerated notions of social interaction represent a challenge to the basic principles of so-called “social media.” Why are blogs so conservative in their form and function? Is there something inherent in the model, or is it the specific players—Blogger, Six Apart, and Wordpress—who have fallen into an unintentional entente, where all have tacitly agreed not to innovate in the social direction? Meanwhile, we see a trend where faster-paced tools (like Friendfeed, Alert Thingy, and Twitter) seem to be spiriting away the most social aspect of blogs, the discussion in the comments. If this goes on, will blogs become an antisocial wasteland, basically reduced to being a publishing platform? While new commenting systems like Disqus and Intense Debate attempt to bridge this commenting gap, we are also seeing the arrival of video-based systems like Seesmic, that seem to offer a higher modality of immediacy and simplicity. Can this hybridized pastiche of different tools actually meet the growing needs of users for a richer social experience related to finding and sharing media? Is there a new sort of model of social media that will likely emerge in the near term?

Presentation files: Better Media Plumbing for the Social Web Presentation.ppt

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4.00 (25 votes)

Stowe Boyd:

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Andy Piper

Interesting talk Stowe. One question I'm now pondering is that as the web evolves towards flow, and the apps go in the same direction - is there a danger of a gap forming between people's ability to deal with flowing information (continuous partial attention etc) and be productive, and the tools and web of flow itself?

01:33AM Wed Oct 22, 2008

Stowe Boyd

I am doing that talk at Defrag in a few weeks!

01:41AM Wed Oct 22, 2008

Andy Piper

... dammit! :-) I'll have to get the slides from Slideshare when you do!

04:01AM Wed Oct 22, 2008

Stefan Halley

Best session I've attended today.

06:59AM Wed Oct 22, 2008

Stuart McRae

Interesting perspective. I wasn't totally convinced by the idea that the flow is "where social media is going", but it is definitely one place where it is going as the environment becomes richer. It's very like the physical networking we do at conferences like this, wrapped around the content in the sessions. A way to spark collaboration and build relationships/communities - but user generated content and do more than that. But it feels like wrapping the flow around blobs of content is what is happening right now.

08:03AM Wed Oct 22, 2008

Nancy Williams

Excellent session with Stowe imparting knowledge rather than pitching. Great insights into the imminent web of flow.

12:38AM Thu Oct 23, 2008

Silke Wieland

Great session, thank you ;-)

02:17AM Thu Oct 23, 2008

Bart Muskala

I missed Stowe last year and am glad that I saw this session. Nice, inspiring talk. Sure something we have to think about. I stopped blogging a while ago, now I know why ;-) Realtime apps: here we come!

Thanks for the session!

04:31AM Thu Oct 23, 2008