Brains working towards machine consciousness

 In the always-beta Web2.0 world, there is a tendency for sites to never be finished.  But the same is true in the world of commercial software, where it is in the owners commercial interest (allegedly) to have a release schedule which provides new functionality over time, requiring upgrades and new investment in the software.

The LinkSphere social networking site for University of Reading staff is now up and running, visible to The World.  Of course, privacy settings allow individual pieces of content to remain invisible to Joanne Blogs, or, indeed, to only be visible to any specific selection of users.  But the general site is available, for all to see.

Although I have run a number of sites in the past, including this one, I find it interesting how nervous I feel about the LinkSphere site.  Somehow, I feel that many users will expect things of it which may simply not be possible.  On the other hand, I also have some suggestions of things which might make it all the more useful.

There are two great pieces of open source software out there, in addition to Drupal on which the site is based, which I think could be very useful for academic staff.  One is Redmine, which is a project management tool, and the other is Opengoo, now renamed Feng Office.  I am not sure whether it would be better to merge these together, to provide a single 'tool', or offer them as separate tools - the latter is certainly simpler (for me!) but also I think it may be less confusing for users.

Social networking sites have two ways, essentially, of attracting a  user base.  They can rely on the network effect - essentially peer pressure where you end up using a site because 'everyone else' does, or rather more importantly, because the site provides something useful to you as an individual, which gets more useful to you the more people use the site.  Hopefully, LinkSphere is in the latter category.

It isn't complete - it may never be - but hopefully it has enough to offer to make it useful for its intended target audience.  I've built it (at least the foundations) - now, will they come?