Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Louis Rosenfeld on the future of social software
"(Louis Rosenfeld is one of the co-founders of the field of information architecture, co-founder of Argus Associates, and co-author of six books, including Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (O'Reilly, 1998; second edition, 2002), with Peter Morville.) Here's his answer to the question I recently posed on the future of social software:
Where do I think social software will be in ten years? I think it’s more interesting and appropriate to consider where software itself will be in ten years, after it’s incorporated lessons and functionality from the recent explosion of social applications. It’s possible that all software will be designed to tap into existing economies of attention and participation, or create new ones. There are many exciting ramifications, but one that hasn’t been discussed much is how interdisciplinary knowledge will finally be recognized as a necessity for just about any creative project. For example, I don’t believe that most people who started out in computer science or other design-related fields ever dreamed they’d be playing the role of economic planner or sociologist.
Another interesting ramification: socially-aware software forces wide audiences to deal with issues previously only within the purview of professionals. Folksonomic tagging is the current obvious example: suddenly, many more people are thinking about and getting firsthand experience with classification, authority control, and related areas than ever before. Ultimately this is fantastic, because these are issues that any citizen of an “information society†should at least grasp. But we should be concerned that traditional expertise doesn’t get overwhelmed and tossed out by euphoric populist practitioners. If it does, we risk losing some important wisdom that could prevent us from repeating expensive mistakes.
Ultimately, the software itself really isn’t that interesting. It will recede into the background. We’ll focus more on the information provided and relationships enabled by increasingly socialized software, among other things. Content and people are just more interesting, important, and a lot more fun than tools.
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