Social information architecture

In cased you missed it, findability.org had a great post on how to evaluate 'social sites'. These Social Software Building blocks are not only a great way to evaluate all the different Web 2.0 sites that are out there, but I believe they also focus thinking while designing websites. From Gene Smith, here's what each honeycomb means:

Identity - a way of uniquely identifying people in the system

Presence - a way of knowing who is online, available or otherwise nearby

• Relationships - a way of describing how two users in the system are related (e.g. in Flickr, people can be contacts, friends of family)
• Conversations - a way of talking to other people through the system

Groups - a way of forming communities of interest

Reputation - a way of knowing the status of other people in the system (who's a good citizen? who can be trusted?)

Sharing - a way of sharing things that are meaningful to participants (like photos or videos)

You gotta love the way they've categorized sites like Flickr and Digg. Of course not every site can or should score high on every of the area. In addition, each of these areas can be implemented in different ways, and the way they are implemented makes a big difference.

One weakness of this model is that it doesn't really describe the relationship of the site itself or brand with the audience that uses it. It only evaluates the interaction with between participants. In my work, you have to build some type of affinity to the brand, if not actual sales on the sites we design. One might argue that if you are doing all these right, you'll get there. However, I believe it's an area that still should be evaluated. (original discover via the Digital Hive) - Paul Herring