Sociable Web

This is a wonderful post from Natalie Weizenbaum

A Sociable Web

It’s a truism that you can’t solve social problems with technology, but social media has made it just as clear that technology does shape the social dynamics that emerge in the spaces it mediates. This drives me to wonder: as more of my friends and friends-of-friends move to individual websites and blogs, what social dynamics does this give rise to? And what different technical designs could improve those dynamics?

I think it’s most interesting to approach this question from the social direction rather than the technological. Our first priority should be a set of social goals for interacting on the internet, and only with that understanding firmly in hand can we start usefully interrogating the way technology gives rise to or fights against the sort of interactions we want. My ultimate aim is to articulate a clear vision of a way to interact with people’s websites that’s not just a pastime or a research process, but that can meet social needs—to imagine what I’ll call a “sociable web”.

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