Stowe Boyd: Building Social Applications

It is a day for presentations, it seems. Laurent Haug pinged me this morning, letting me know that the video of my presentation from the Lift conference in Geneva is up. He had some kind words to say about the presentation, Social = Me First, and the workshop that I had given there, Building Social Applications.

I thought that I had written a “Social= Me First” post, but I haven’t per se. Here’s one that touches on the theme.

I’ve uploaded the Social = Me First presentation:

Here’s the video:

The core takeaway:

People are online for discovery. It looks like its about things, but its not. They go to ‘places’, but really to find people. And below it all, they are involved with people to discover themselves.

This is not a high-minded philosophy pitch: it just practical. If you are trying to build social apps you have to understand that, even if the people using the apps think that they are merely trying to find new music, or better shoes, or the best extreme karaking trip in Hawaii.

As more of the web moves toward this model, more power moves to the edge. Users want control, they want to make the rules, choose their terms, friends, networks. Only the players that understand this will succeed. People will find meaning from relationship with others, not by membership in organizations or groups.

There was no video of the workshop, alas, but I have uploaded the presentation: