An approach to interoperable and user controlled social software
Social software is about users and the content they create. This changes the role of the user since the user is now also the creator and not only the receiver. This again changes the sense of ownership since the intellectual property then belongs to the users (a.k.a. creators). An obvious result of this is that they feel co-ownership of the sites – and demand control and participation in the decision making. However there is a mismatch between the current state of social software services and the changed user role. Users do not control their data, have little influence on decision making, users can not carry their profile to a new provider if they wish to and it is not posible to socialize across services.
This thesis examins and implements interoperable, decentralized social software from a cross domain perspective in order to overcome the above paradox. A solution is presented using a peer-to-peer architechture and semantic web technologies such as RDF and SPARQL. The thesis concludes that semantic web technology can be a falicitator for enhanced interoperability whereas decentralization of social software introduces issued in terms of e.g. supporting sociality.
Filed under: Social Software, The Semantic Web | 1 Comment
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