Social websites through Plato's lens

Plato enters the scene as a playwright unhappy with the two common extremes of thought: dogmatism and skepticism. He is intrigued when he encounters Socrates and begins to write about him. His background as a playwright will have a significant impact on the way he influences his world.

Plato was skeptical of whether words can really convey ideas. He believed they were inadequate and had the tendency to lead us to believe we understood. This explains why Socrates was never able to completely nail down some important ideas. Plato builds on his thoughts and takes them to dialogues to be read at dinner, leading to insightful discussions that clarified important ideas.

In analyzing social websites through the lens of Plato we will answer three questions:

What makes a social website?
An online community of users that engage in some kind of social interaction (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace are some of the big ones).

What makes a social website good?

• Unified theme
• Plato discusses the idea of unity and the importance of being organic (in the way that human bodies and plants are unified). This unity draws people in and makes them want to be one with the website as well.
• Inclusion of everyone
• Plato claimed all people were capable of knowledge (whether they practiced it or not). The website should have a broad enough reach that all who choose can join in the conversation.
• An enticing opportunity for open discussion
• Plato wrote dialogues to be read at parties because words themselves fall short of conveying the exact meaning of an idea. With a dialogue, he was able to get a group of people discussing, which takes the conclusions to the next level.
• Easy to understand
• One should be able to quickly understand what the purpose of the website is. While they are on the page, they should become more and more familiar with this purpose. Similar to the idea of a unified theme.

How does one create a good social website?

When creating a social website, one must have the theoretical knowledge (as discussed in this post) as well as the technical knowledge (the how-to). Plato encountered a battle between these two types of knowledge in his life, which we continue to see today, but both are essential when one wants to make something truly great.