Evolution of Social Software

The term ‘Social software’ evolved as a popular term in the recent past, used
for defining programs that support group interaction. Though this terminology
doesn’t have a long enough history, the fundamental ideas of creating programs
supporting group interaction is something very old, dating back to Vannevar Bush
in 1945. In an influential article called ‘As We May Think’, Vannevar conceived
of a device that could act as an enlarged intimate memory supplement, mechanized
in a way that it may be referred to with exceeding speed and flexibility. The
device that Vannevar conceived, he named it as ‘memex’ that is synonymous to
today’s ‘Personal Computer’. However, Vannevar’s ideas on the future of
computing were discarded then, as it was way to ahead of his time. Vannevar also
mentioned how the memex could further benefit groups in his same seminal
article. Since then, there was no reference of computers being used to
collaborate until 1960s.

In 1958, US formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in response to
the launching of Sputnik by the USSR. Dr. J.C.R. Licklider headed ARPA and
within 18 months the first successful satellite was developed. Dr. J.C.R.
Licklider soon changed ARPA to offer more research grants to universities. His
efforts resulted in universities offering their first Ph.D. in Computer Science.
This further led to ARPANET – commercially time-sharing system subsequently
leading to Internet.

Licklider wrote in 1968 in The Computer as a Communication Device. There he
analyzed the possibility of facilitating communication among people without
bringing them physically together in one place. Licklider not only speaks of
communication as a device, he also explains the methods of collaboration and the
functioning of people in groups.

In 1962, Doug Engelbart, inspired by the vision of Vannevar Bush, set up a
research lab. The objective of this reach lab was to create an elaborate
hypermedia system called NLS (oNLine System). In fact this was the first
successful implementation of hypertext, though the term ‘hypertext’ was not
invented then.

In his seminal work, Augmented Human Intellect: A conceptual Framework,
Engelbart briefed on the basic idea of augmentation. He referred to ‘augmenting
human intellect’ being capable of increasing man’s capacity to approach a
complex problem situation and find a quick and comprehensive solution. Engelbart
refers to ‘augmentation’ as a way of life “in an integrated domain where
hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human 'feel for a situation' usefully
co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology and notation,
sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids." With the passage of
time this term evolved to become ‘office augmentation’ as Englebart preferred
the term ‘augmentation’ to ‘automation’ as automation was seemingly
de-personalizing. This resulted in IBM coining a new terminology called ‘office
automation’ to broaden the scope of their products to all aspects of the office,
so they coined the term 'office automation'.

Eventually, the term evolved as ‘groupware’ in 1980s when Robert Johansen wrote
the best-selling business book Groupware: Computer Support for Business Teams.
Soon the term was corrupted with Lotus Notes and Microsoft realizing their
products with specific features and calling them ‘groupware’.

By the year 1990, the term ‘groupware’ was slowly getting replaced with ‘social
software’. Clay Shirky who organized a ‘social network summit’ in the year 2002
coined this term to gather together all uses of software that supported
interacting groups, even if the interaction was offline, e.g. Meetup, nTag, etc.

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