1. NEW ASSUMPTIONS
FOR DESIGNERS OF
THE SOCIAL WEB
Chris Messina • WebVisions • May 22, 2009 • Portland, Oregon

2. What is the social web?

3. Let’s begin with Web 2.0

4. “Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected
devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the
intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a
continually-updated service that gets better the more people
use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources,
including individual users, while providing their own data and
services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating
network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and
going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user
experiences.”
— Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0: Compact Definition?
Photo credit: Adam Tinworth
“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices;
Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that
platform:
delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it,
consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while
providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others,
creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,”
and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

5. “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry
caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an
attempt to understand the rules for success on that new
platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications
that harness network effects to get better the more people
use them. (This is what I’ve elsewhere called ‘harnessing
collective intelligence.’)”
— Tim O’Reilly
Photo credit: Adam Tinworth
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the
internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new
platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to
get better the more people use them. (This is what I’ve elsewhere called “harnessing
collective intelligence.”)

6. WWW
and so fundamentally, we’re moving from a web of documents... (CLICK)

7. WWW
to a web of people.
And so when we talk about the “social” web,

8. “Social” is the
state of living as a “society”
we’re really talking about society — the collection of norms, habits and behaviors that define
what a fairly large collection of people are all about.

9. the basic atomic unity of society is the individual.
which is critical when it comes to the designing for the social web

10. the basic atomic unity of society is the individual.
which is critical when it comes to the designing for the social web

11. social is also probably the most overused word of 2009.
so let’s get back to some basics. (CLICK)

12. A few old assumptions
before we talk about what’s new, let’s talk about some things that haven’t changed
they apply throughout the historical development of technology.

13. People are busy
First, People are busy

14. People have limited attention
Second, People have limited attention

15. People want to know what’s in it for them
Third, people want to know what’s in it for them
“why should I care?”

16. People want it to “just work”
Fourth, People want it to be easy and “just work”

17. People don’t care about technology
Fifth, people don’t care about technology. Not really.
natural skepticism: “don’t complicate my life”
technology creates aprehension: “i don’t want to learn something new”

18. People shouldn’t need to care about technology
Sixth, they shouldn’t need to care about it to benefit from it.

19. Good technology is largely invisible — it blends in and enhances without encumbering. Think
of the iPod and all the technology that makes it possible.

20. Then contrast it with the Zune.

21. 12:00
Or better yet, the VCR.

22. 12:00
Or better yet, the VCR.

23. 10 new assumptions

24. 1.
Most people already signed up elsewhere
in other words, people don’t need an account on every site.

25. Take FriendFeed for example.
They let me sign up with ONE click. (CLICK)
So say I want to sign in with Facebook. (CLICK)

26. ☛
Take FriendFeed for example.
They let me sign up with ONE click. (CLICK)
So say I want to sign in with Facebook. (CLICK)

27. Here I am at Facebook — and I can sign up without creating another account.
Let’s go back.

28. Here I am at Facebook — and I can sign up without creating another account.
Let’s go back.

29. Now, if I click on the Google logo (CLICK)...

30. ☛
Now, if I click on the Google logo (CLICK)...

31. I’m taken to Google where — same thing — I can sign up without creating another FriendFeed
username and password.

32. I’m taken to Google where — same thing — I can sign up without creating another FriendFeed
username and password.

33. Now as a sidenote, this is made possible using protocols like OpenID and OAuth.

34. Just for geeks?
But isn’t just for geeks? Not really.

35. How about this guy?

36. How about Eminem?

37. How about Eminem?

38. check it out. Eminem’s doing this too.

39. Lessons
• Remove all barriers to getting in to your service
• Let people sign up and login to your site using an existing
account that they already have
• Realize that this shift is the beginning of internet identity
• It’s not about “owning your customer”
* Remove barriers
* Let people sign up using an existing account
* this is the beginning of internet identity
* It’s not about “owning your customer” -- it’s about SERVING your customer

40. 2.
Their friends are online
Now, of course if you make it really easy for people to sign up, you’ll find that people WILL
sign up.
Which means more and more people are actually online — and those people have friends who
are also online.
So, I’ve been doing a lot of travel recently and I was in London briefly on my way back to San
Francisco from Europe. (CLICK)

41. In the terminal was this funny little computer that advertised a very interesting service...
CHECK YOUR BEBO FACEBOOK MYSPACE HERE!
...all social networks that we know and love, right? (CLICK)

42. Well, the killer was that they had a WHOLE SCREEN devoted just to Twitter.
I mean, this is in Heathrow, whose typical clientele (CLICK)

43. Photo by Erin Siffing
I wouldn’t imagine would be all that into Twitter.... But then again, I could be wrong.
But I think underlying this is the fact that people and their friends are online.

44. so clearly you want to make it easy for people to connect with people that they know.
however, what you DON’T want to do, is ask for people’s passwords (CLICK)

45. so clearly you want to make it easy for people to connect with people that they know.
however, what you DON’T want to do, is ask for people’s passwords (CLICK)

46. in fact, there are even better ways of making use of PUBLIC data to import friends. (CLICK)
For example, by searching over someone’s Twitter friends.

47. in fact, there are even better ways of making use of PUBLIC data to import friends. (CLICK)
For example, by searching over someone’s Twitter friends.

48. Lessons
• People want to be where their friends are
• Make it easy to bring friends in from elsewhere
• Don’t ask people for their passwords!
* People want to be where their friends are
* Make it easy to bring friends in from elsewhere
* Don’t ask people for their passwords!

49. 3.
Email is the new fax machine
Not long ago, the fax machine was the darling of industry.
All kinds of business was conducted over telephone lines, sending data at whopping speeds
up to 33.6 kbit/s. (CLICK)

50. Photo by Fenchurch!
but those days are over.
and that might be the case for email too as well. (CLICK)

51. a story published just LAST WEEK provides insight into this trend.

52. in its place, we’re seeing people use social network-based messaging and instant messaging
services like MSN and AIM, even Twitter.

53. Wikipedia
Monthly SMS messages sent in USA (in millions)
Just take a look at the meteoric rise in SMS volume in the past couple years...

54. One useful anecdote... my girlfriend Brynn has a friend named Celea who she used to babysit
for and is now 15.
They hung out last weekend and Brynn talked to her about how she keeps in touch with her
friends. She has unlimited SMS plan... but can't make phone calls. She says quot;twitter doesn't
exist for herquot;.
It’s a whole new world which demands thinking beyond email.

55. Crusher is an evite-killer that gives you quite a few options for controlling how they notify
you.

56. FriendFeed similarly gives you a good deal of control, including email, but also offering IM
and desktop notification.

57. again, brightkite provides a nice way to control all your notifications with a simple switch.

58. Lessons
• Don’t rely on just email to communicate with your
customers
• Let your customers specify how they want to be
contacted

59. 4.
Discovery will save us all
one of the problems that we have once we make assumptions like people have accounts and
friends elsewhere is how we go about asking people for this information. (CLICK)

60. we end up overwhelming the user with choices — so what does someone do here when they
have a google, yahoo and AOL account?

61. what if people really just want this?

62. what if people really just want this?

63. Photo by Timothy Vogel
this is what we call the NASCAR problem, something that I think we’re going to hear a lot
more about.

64. And this problem isn’t just related to OpenID. In general it’s increasingly challenging to
provide all the possible choices.
now things will get better here, but we have a long way to go.

65. Lessons
• Keep an eye out for XRD/LRDD (new discovery protocols)
• Keep in mind that the shotgun approach is painful
all that i can really offer you now is to:
Keep an eye out for XRD/LRDD (new discovery protocols)
Keep in mind that the shotgun approach is painful

66. 5.
Cloud computing is upon us
on the heels of discovery, or maybe because of discovery, I think

67. c:
icon by Seedling Design
we’re going from owning our own hard drives with our data... (CLICK)

68. http://
icon by Seedling Design
to moving our data to the cloud.

69. icons by Seedling Design and Fast Icon
you’ve got your youtube, facebook, flickr... no one will need to do backups anymore, but this
will have a profound impact on how you design services.

70. icons by Seedling Design, etc
hybrid applications like this essentially require a connection to function.

71. and we’re even seeing this creep into desktop applications like Keynote where there is now a
Share menu... that I imagine will slowly replace the File menu (like the fax machine).

72. icon by Seedling Design
which brings me back to openid.
combined with discovery, I believe that you will use your OpenID as a universal pointer to all
of your services, so when a great new web applications launches, you simply sign in, provide
authorization and BOOM, you can get to work.
this is how cloud computing will be put to work for us.

73. 6.
People want to share

74. facebook has made it their mantra that they want to make it easy for people to share.

75. turns out that if you give people a good amount of control over how they share their data
(CLICK)

76. they’re more likely to share more of it.

77. on the flip side, if software doesn’t have sharing built in, i think it’s broken.
this is from google spreadsheets... this is why Microsoft Office is going to ultimately fail
unless they really move towards a web-friendly, open sharing model.

78. Lessons
• Sharing is a core feature of social applications
• Giving people good privacy controls and sane defaults is
critical to getting people to share
• Software that doesn’t have sharing built-in is broken
• Don’t rely on proprietary/platform-specific sharing
mechanisms; embrace the web
* Sharing is a core feature of social applications
* Giving people good privacy controls and sane defaults is critical to getting people to share
* Software that doesn’t have sharing built-in is broken
* Don’t rely on proprietary/platform-specific sharing mechanisms; embrace the web

79. 7.
Real identity online is becoming the norm

80. Facebook recommendations
No where is this more obvious than on Facebook.
Here is a list of three people that Facebook has recommended to me.
The second one was suggested because we went to the same high school. Kind of a stretch,
right? I mean, what is that in the photo? A pillow? I have no idea WHO SHE IS

81. So let’s say I actually dive in and ask Facebook to list ALL the people it thinks I might know...
this is where it gets interesting.
(click)
Now, here I see someone I know. I’ve met Eric in person; I could probably add him as a
friend... but is it really him? It’s not like I have some shared secret with him to verify that this
is actually an online representation of his...

82. So let’s say I actually dive in and ask Facebook to list ALL the people it thinks I might know...
this is where it gets interesting.
(click)
Now, here I see someone I know. I’ve met Eric in person; I could probably add him as a
friend... but is it really him? It’s not like I have some shared secret with him to verify that this
is actually an online representation of his...

83. so I decide to do a search — and lo, out of 444 results, he comes up first. Sure, but this is the
same guy from the previous page.
(click)
If we have 63 mutual friends, well, that’s starting make this more plausible...

84. so I decide to do a search — and lo, out of 444 results, he comes up first. Sure, but this is the
same guy from the previous page.
(click)
If we have 63 mutual friends, well, that’s starting make this more plausible...

85. Ok, now I’m feeling pretty confident. In lieu of a shared secret between us, a familiar social
graph is a reasonable substitute. Get that: by revealing one’s social connections I get closer
to someone’s real identity.

86. your social graph is essentially a kind of identity fingerprint for people who know you and
know who you know.
but this is really only possible because my mutual friends shared their identities first.

87. @factoryjoe
so some of you might know that I use “factoryjoe” as my username on the web.
But, no one in the real world has any frigging clue who “factoryjoe” is, especially without
context.
And so people have come up to me and called me “Joe” without even thinking about it.
This online identity was becoming better known than me!

88. @factoryjoe
@chrismessina
So I killed it. At least on Twitter. And now I’m just @chrismessina.
Like I was before, and always have been.
But I’ve seen other people do the same thing since I made this change.
And it looks like it’s only becoming more common.

89. Let’s take a look at another example.
Compare the chat list on the left with the one on the right.
With AIM, you’ve got all these foreign-looking usernames... whereas on the right you have
real names.
CLICK - focus on pirillo
[talk about Facebook’s early decision to swear off usernames]

90. Let’s take a look at another example.
Compare the chat list on the left with the one on the right.
With AIM, you’ve got all these foreign-looking usernames... whereas on the right you have
real names.
CLICK - focus on pirillo
[talk about Facebook’s early decision to swear off usernames]

91. “l0ckergn0me”
vs.
Chris Pirillo
understand that this DESIGN decision was as important as Flickr’s public-by-default decision.
Heck, I don’t even know what a “locker gnome” is. But here’s the change.

92. Eventbox
and you can see this in software like eventbox

93. Eventbox
why does this option even exist?
This to me proves that we are in a transitional period, from assumed aliases to one of real,
public, transparent identities.

94. Eventbox
why does this option even exist?
This to me proves that we are in a transitional period, from assumed aliases to one of real,
public, transparent identities.

95. morality,
creativity,
spontaneity,
problem solving,
lack of prejudice,
Self-actualization acceptance of facts
self-esteem, confidence,
achievement, respect of others,
Esteem respect by others
friendship, family, sexual intimacy
Love/belonging
security of: body, employment, resources,
Safety morality, the family, health, property
breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
Physiological
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
now, I think this what this means is that we’re seeing a shift to using real identity because the
social web is becoming a increasingly important piece of many people “self-actualization”.
self-actualization is from mazlow’s hierarchy of needs and is at the top of the pyramid here.

96. even places like MySpace, where pseudonymity reigns is moving in this direction...

97. even places like MySpace, where pseudonymity reigns is moving in this direction...

98. even to the point where sites are allowing you to VERIFY your identity. this is huge.

99. even to the point where sites are allowing you to VERIFY your identity. this is huge.

100. Lessons
• Facebook is causing a shift in how peoople feel about
identity online
• Real identity can provide for more transparency and
accountability; it can incentivize good behavior
• Leverage real life attributes to improve your service

101. 8.
Connectivity is increasing

102. people want to know what’s going on RIGHT now and services like Friendfeed, Facebook and
of course Twitter are rising to meet that challenge.

103. but when everyone is publishing, it’s hard to get to the good stuff.
we have primitive tools to search over this corpus, but it’s the early days.

104. i think this will have some unintended consequences though.
the “techmemization” of content... where if you don’t respond to something AS IT’S
HAPPENING, you’ll miss the boat.
hemispheric effect -- when the other half of the world is sleeping...

105. Lessons
• Half-life of digital information is decreasing
• Conversations are becoming more contemporaneous
(Techmemization)
• Beware of the “hemispheric effect”
• We’re seeing the rise of the real-time web

106. 9.
The stream is the new hallmark of a social app

107. Feed formats like ATOM and RSS were designed with blog posts in mind, but people are
doing a lot more on the web today, beyond blogging.

108. streams are great because they allow people to learn about and discover what other people
are doing and then model the same behaviors

109. consider the basic nytimes homepage. it doesn’t provide me with a whole lot of social hooks
to get into this content... except if you look at the header here... (CLICK)
you can see that they’re finding clever ways to highlight activity on the site.

110. consider the basic nytimes homepage. it doesn’t provide me with a whole lot of social hooks
to get into this content... except if you look at the header here... (CLICK)
you can see that they’re finding clever ways to highlight activity on the site.

111. another great site that’s all about the stream is called Enjoysthings.
it;s like friendfeed but with it’s own flare.

114. Lessons
• People are doing more than just blogging.
• Consider an activity-centric model for your site.
• Show what people are doing on your site.
• Streams are a great way to promote social discovery.

115. 10.
Assume that your data will flow

116. now that we have connected people’s accounts, the next thing that we need to work on is
getting the data to flow...

117. and so because of this, you need to think about how your content is going to look when it
goes offsite.

118. Lessons
• Design your content to move off-site
• Think about the design of atomic content that is self-
contained
• Again, provide good privacy controls and settings: keep
the user in control

119. Review

120. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere

121. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online

122. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine

123. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all

124. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all
5. Cloud computing is upon us

125. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all
5. Cloud computing is upon us
6. People want to share

126. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all
5. Cloud computing is upon us
6. People want to share
7. Real identity online is becoming the norm

127. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all
5. Cloud computing is upon us
6. People want to share
7. Real identity online is becoming the norm
8. Connectivity is increasing

128. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all
5. Cloud computing is upon us
6. People want to share
7. Real identity online is becoming the norm
8. Connectivity is increasing
9. The stream is the new hallmark of a social app

129. Review
1. Most people already signed up elsewhere
2. Their friends are online
3. Email is the new fax machine
4. Discovery will save us all
5. Cloud computing is upon us
6. People want to share
7. Real identity online is becoming the norm
8. Connectivity is increasing
9. The stream is the new hallmark of a social app
10. Assume that your data will flow

130. so those are 10 new assumptions for designers of the social web.
(CLICK) but i’ve got 5 more to give you.

131. +5
so those are 10 new assumptions for designers of the social web.
(CLICK) but i’ve got 5 more to give you.

132. location: think about designing your service to take advantage of location.
tara talked about this, but expectations are rising for customer service.

133. 11. Location, location, location
location: think about designing your service to take advantage of location.
tara talked about this, but expectations are rising for customer service.

134. location is coming to the browser as well.

135. customer service: alaska air
trustworthy relationships improve over time (pandora, last.fm)
people aren’t obsolete: mturk, aardvark
browsers are getting more powerful... so the web apps we use will become more compelling.

136. 11. Location, location, location
customer service: alaska air
trustworthy relationships improve over time (pandora, last.fm)
people aren’t obsolete: mturk, aardvark
browsers are getting more powerful... so the web apps we use will become more compelling.

137. 11. Location, location, location
12. Expectations for customer service are rising
customer service: alaska air
trustworthy relationships improve over time (pandora, last.fm)
people aren’t obsolete: mturk, aardvark
browsers are getting more powerful... so the web apps we use will become more compelling.

138. 11. Location, location, location
12. Expectations for customer service are rising
13. People will reward trustworthy relationships with
service providers that improve over time
customer service: alaska air
trustworthy relationships improve over time (pandora, last.fm)
people aren’t obsolete: mturk, aardvark
browsers are getting more powerful... so the web apps we use will become more compelling.

139. 11. Location, location, location
12. Expectations for customer service are rising
13. People will reward trustworthy relationships with
service providers that improve over time
14. Just because we have more technology doesn’t mean
that people are becoming obsolete!
customer service: alaska air
trustworthy relationships improve over time (pandora, last.fm)
people aren’t obsolete: mturk, aardvark
browsers are getting more powerful... so the web apps we use will become more compelling.

140. 11. Location, location, location
12. Expectations for customer service are rising
13. People will reward trustworthy relationships with
service providers that improve over time
14. Just because we have more technology doesn’t mean
that people are becoming obsolete!
15. Browsers are about to get a lot more powerful
customer service: alaska air
trustworthy relationships improve over time (pandora, last.fm)
people aren’t obsolete: mturk, aardvark
browsers are getting more powerful... so the web apps we use will become more compelling.

141. The role of standards
before i close out, i want to take a moment to highlight the role and importance of standards
here for designing for the social web.

142. A standard in practice is worth
more than a standard in theory
but adoption of these technologies is key.

143. Ubiquity of a standard allows an
industry to move the level of
competition to a new layer
Photo by grendelkhan
the reality is, you don’t want to compete on the level of social apps that exist today.
we want to move up to a higher level of competition by commoditizing aspects of the
social web that are hard today, but are also basic or fundamental.

144. creating new opportunities for
innovation on user experience
Photo by Chris Metcalf
in so doing, we create new opportunities to compete on the basis of offering better service
and experience without relying on user lock-in.

145. vCalendar
and indeed, one of the best examples of the power of standards to change an industry is the
iphone.
it is the benefactor of years of open standards development.

146. IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) vCalendar
International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000)
Bluetooth
Short Message Service (SMS)
JPEG
MPEG-4 Part 14,
ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003 (MP4)
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3)
SQLite, TXT
vCard, etc
HTTP, CSS, JS, etc
SMTP, IMAP, POP3
and indeed, one of the best examples of the power of standards to change an industry is the
iphone.
it is the benefactor of years of open standards development.

147. Building the social web

148. this is really the premise behind the Diso Project:
to make it make it easier to build social experiences on the web
by deriving standards and formats from popular trends.

149. Diso Components*
*subject to change
(DON’T CLICK)
identity & profile
discovery & access control
contacts & friends
activity streams
messaging
groupings & shared spaces

150. Diso Components*
1. identity & profile
2. discovery & access control
3. contacts & friends
4. activity streams
5. messaging
6. groupings & shared spaces
*subject to change
(DON’T CLICK)
identity & profile
discovery & access control
contacts & friends
activity streams
messaging
groupings & shared spaces

151. Our challenge is to build technologies that enhance the
network and serve people so that they in turn can build
better and richer societies.
BECAUSE
Our fundamental challenge is to build technologies that enhance the network and serve
people so that they in turn can build better and richer societies.

152. fin.
chris@citizenagency.com • @chrismessina • factoryjoe.com
Color palette: oddend by martin Typeface: FTF Flama™ by Mario Feliciano
so that’s it. questions?

153. fin.
chris@citizenagency.com • @chrismessina • factoryjoe.com
Color palette: oddend by martin Typeface: FTF Flama™ by Mario Feliciano
so that’s it. questions?