There’s a long overview of social software history, trends, and possible futures by Darren Wershler-Henry, from a class at York called “Communications for Tomorrow.”
Particularly interesting to me are the Other Questions for Social Software:
Another key question for social software and the communities it creates concerns the rules for entry. How complicated or simple, how stingent or loose should they be?
Every culture has rules, and online cultures are no exception. But how strong do the sanctions that govern commonspace need to be, really?
[…]
Paranoia and the urge to control are far too common in the business community’s approach to online community. Corporations are anxious about the actions of their users because they are ignorant about the slightly irreverent and iconoclastic nature of online interaction. The failure to allow some room for unruly online behaviour is one of the quickest ways to kill a nascent online society. Clearly, there need to be some disincentives to causing mischief online; but just making it difficult and inconvenient should suffice in most cases.
Rituals
We do know that part of what makes any community work, including online communities, is the inclusion of rituals - a subject closely related to community rules. Amy Jo Kim, author of Community Building on the Web, points out that there are rituals specific to particular kinds of social software.
[…]
Like all life-cycles, the cycle of community includes a reproductive phase. Since reproduction is essential for long-term online survival, online enterprises are wise to capitalize on it. Communities that include features allowing members to assume control of sections of the community’s functions over time or split off into sub-communities tend to be more successful than static sites.
It’s a nice broad overview, coupled with some interesting thoughts about future research into identity, visualization, and community life-cycle. [Many-to-Many]