I have been reading ”The Timeless Way of Building” by Cristopher Alexander - a book where he introduces the concept of the quality without a name – something so inherent to humans that it cannot even be named. This quality distinguishes exceptional and extraordinary architectural works from those less worthy. He says
”Places which have this quality invite this quality to come to life in us. And when we have this quality in us, we tend to make it come to life in towns and buildings which we help to build”…”it is the quality of life”.
Indeed, some places are alive and there are people in them. People who perform some activities or just people, being alive – there; and there are places that are simply dead – where nobody stays. It is quite similar with social networks. On some social networks there are many of us, poking each other, twitting, retwitting …while on others there is just a dead interface where nobody comes. Why is that? Why don’t I come to citeulike.org even if I desperately need a way to organize my references and share them with my colleagues? Why don’t I come regularly to bibsonomy.org? And I do go to Facebook and Twitter all the time.
Christopher Alexander states that in architecture
”every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep on happening there”.
Some places simply support well our natural patterns of activities – they don’t stand in the way of our natural needs (forces). In those places we feel good and we keep on coming. Could it be the same with virtual places that Social Networks have become?
I keep on using del.icio.us I have a practice of browsing the news every day and frequently I want to save some things for further review. Del.icio.us comes to the place where I need it most (my browser, in the form of a plugin) and does not interfere much – it let’s me do exactly what I need. I also need to recommend links to people that I know who might care to read it – quite easy again. I end up using it without knowing it. Using del.icio.us is not an activity for me, it is an integral part of my natural activity which is news processing.
Twitter also integrates in my life, quite naturally. Whenever I have a need to feel the presence of others and see what they are doing, I go to twitter. It often happens in the metro when I am surrounded by strangers, and need a bond with people I know. If Twitter did not exist I would most probably send text messages to friends to see how they are doing. It is my natural need – like the need of birds in forests to make sounds and communicate their presence and the state of ”being alive”.
A normal thing when I read something that does not keep my attention is to look around, see what’s up. It is a natural drive. When I am reading something online, and it gets boring but I still have to read it, instead of looking around I go to Facebook. The more time I am spending on Facebook, the more boring the work I am doing must be. And yet having a place to ”look around” is a natural need. That is why facebook integrates so well with my life.
So in every social network that I use regularly, there is a natural need that the service supports. And moreover, the service is accessible in the situation, in the context and on the device where the natural need occurs. Those social networks do not impose any behavior to me, they just make it possible for my natural patterns of activities to take place.
I believe that from ”The Timeless Way of Building” we can learn a lot about building in general, and therefore about building Social Networks that are alive, that posses this quality without a name and that integrate in our lives. Collecting good practices for Social Interfaces might be a good start. The moment has certainly come to extract some wisdom from all the experience with hundreds of social networks that exist on the Web and learn how to let quality social networks emerge.
