A lot of excellent bloggers are making their voices heard on the issues of social software or social networking software etc. the definition of which seems to vary with each blogger. I don’t know enough about it to organize my own thoughts, but I was amused by David Weinberger’s characterization of one of the problems of the explicit social networks registered in social software on a post at Corante:
“Real social networks are always implicit. The ones constructed explicitly are always — yes, always — infected with a heavy dose of social bullshit. It’s like thinking that the invitiation list for your wedding actually reflects your circle of friends and relatives. No, you had to invite Barry-the-Boozer because he’s your cousin and you couldn’t invite Marsha because then you’d have to invite her husband Larry-the-Ass-Grabber and her daughter Erin-the-Snot-Flinger. Explicitly constructed social networks not only lack the differentiation that makes relationships real, they are falsehoods built to reinforce spectral relationships and to avoid ending shaky ones.”