We propose a trade group of social software developers and other interested parties who work together to create and promote open standards for the social software community. Social software blends tools and modes for richer online social environments and experiences. Some examples of social software are weblogs, wikis, forums, chat environments, or instant messaging, and related tools and data structures for identity, integration, interchange and analysis.

The alliance will: aid discovery of developers working on synergistic projects and standards; assist in shaping open standards that mesh well with other alliance and Internet standards; and help promote each standard to gain wider adoption.

The fast-paced nature of the social software space now argues for developing light-weight, easy-to-implement standards, following the Internet tradition of rough consensus and running code, but perhaps moving faster than the larger standards bodies. It is expected that those standards promulgated by the alliance which become widely adopted will be proposed to the appropriate general standards body or bodies: W3C, IETF, ISO, etc. >from *Social Software Alliance Wiki*. Call For Discussion. April 16, 2003

related context
> another world is happening: network-based movements. march 3, 2003
> live from the blogosphere!. february 13, 2003
> wikiwiki: communicating asynchronously across the net. july 9, 2002
> weblog: a new flow of information. may 15, 2002
> 20 year newsgroup archive: google's usenet archive. december 17, 2001

imago
> lightweigth sandals with dampers for lightweigt software teams