We’re All Chemicals
Dan Donald // SocialMediaCamp, London 2008
My name’s Dan
I’m a web developer
I’m not a chemist
We’re All Chemicals?
Social objects could be thought of a bit like the elements in
the periodic table.
There’s different types such as blog posts, comments,
images, videos, etc.
Our content could be thought of as a ‘social compound’ (to
stretch the analogy).
What is a social object?
Something that relates to other social objects
Something you can interact with; that allows for an activity
Common ground – a point of discussion. See
0.html for some examples.
We’re all social objects, and now so is this presentation.
Current content distribution
The ‘page’ model might be outdated in many ways but it
A page is a template to present our social objects.
Find unique value between online and offline channels.
There are additional ways to distribute our content.
Open the silos
Widget and ‘socialise’ our content.
Syndicate – RSS/Atom but also Friendfeed (social
APIs – allow developers easy access to your data.
Microformats – give a sense of meaning to our content.
Search engines (such as Yahoo!) taking more interest.
We publish as pages but need to understand how the
content can be used outside of this.
The audience – where are they accessing from? Is there
geographical, temporal or linguistic context to your content?
Consider accessibility (provides presentational context),
device (scale and capabilities different from the desktop).
Social – provide context to our social network(s). Possibly
look at using personas to differentiate aspects of our lives.
Because commenting can happen anywhere (Friendfeed,
Disqus, WordPress, Forums) the conversation is becoming
We have the ability to link this more closely to the source
through these services but also through Twitter search,
Technorati, Google Alerts, blogs that trackback and their
Commenting is distributed and we can use that as visitors
can continue to discuss on services they already use.
Most sites that embrace social media become micro-
communities; even a basic blog.
This means site owners need to be aware of an additional
set of skills in managing and nurturing this community.
There’s two streams, through cultivating your community
and creating compelling content internally but also nurturing
It can often be overlooked but copy is part of the interface.
With a more social/community outlook the implications of
this need to be considered.
Writing everything from labels to articles can potentially
embrace the idea of a site as a community.
Understanding how copy can be interpreted through
different contexts is the issue.
The social web
Think of your content being used outside of it’s original
Find value in being open.
Share and listen.
Engage in the conversation.
Censorship can be community driven rather than imposed.
So, are we chemicals?
Just as we each are unique, I see our content in this way.
Each collection of social objects is unique not only through
it’s composition but through implicit contexts (author,
Our unique ‘compound’ can form a part of many other new
compounds and be reused endlessly.
Rights are an issue; assert rights over their content through
Creative Commons style licenses.
Living, social content
We publish it through our original intended use.
We present it to different audiences (accessibility for one)
It could be viewed through many devices or services.
The conversation is distributed and enhances findability.
Tagging and social bookmarking provide context through
It can be hard to accept that not everyone can like everything
all of the time and the audience has the right to disagree
Negative influences can be discussed alongside positive.
Community management isn’t easy.
It can be a real change for companies to embrace being
more open; it may not work at all.
Keeping up can drain resources.
How can you measure success?
Get your site to socialise
Allow for commenting/discussion alongside content.
Closely link your content through direct relationships and
tagging. Use contexts to find related materials.
Make it easy for people to share your content with others.
Get involved in the dialogue around your site or content.
Use external channels on your site (Flickr, You Tube, etc).
Technologies such as Comet will allow for a more ‘live’ web.
The implications of sharing our lives openly will become
Social networking may appear to be a layer of the web
rather than the walled gardens we have today.
Mobile and other devices will become more compelling.
Instead of being a destination (like Facebook), the
functionality may be available on most sites.