Editing Social web (section)

===Social features added to non-social sites===

Web sites that are not built around social interaction nevertheless add features that enable discussion and collaboration out of an interest in expanding their user bases—a trend that is projected to continue in the coming years.<ref name= Won />{{rp|233}} As early as 1995 electronic retailer [[Amazon.com|Amazon]] had implemented such features, especially the customer review, to great success; Joshua Porter, author of ''Designing for the Social Web,'' writes:

{{cquote|At Amazon, customer reviews act like a magnet, pulling people down the page. That's the content people want...They keep scrolling until they hit the reviews, which in some cases are up to 6000 pixels down from the top of the page! Nobody seems to mind...Customer reviews allow people to learn about a product from the experience of others without any potentially biased seller information. No wonder everyone wanted to shop at Amazon. They had information that no other site had: they had the ''Truth''. And that truth, interestingly enough, arose from simply aggregating the conversation of normal people.<ref name=Porter />{{rp|4}}}}

These customer reviews contribute valuable information that individuals seek out, and are written by users for free simply out of a desire to share their experiences with a product or service with others; the quality and value of each review is further determined by other users, who rate them based upon whether or not they found the feedback helpful, "weeding out the bad (by pushing them to the bottom [of the page])."<ref name= Porter />{{rp|4}}

Non-retailer, special interest websites have also implemented social web features to broaden their appeal: one example is Allrecipes.com, a community of 10 million cooks that share ideas and recipes with one another.<ref>{{cite web|last=Levi-Garza|first=Jalaane|title=Allrecipes Content & Technology Services|url=http://allrecipes.com/help/aboutus/licensing.aspx|publisher=AllRecipes.com|access-date=7 June 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061018123024/http://allrecipes.com/Help/aboutus/licensing.aspx|archive-date=18 October 2006}}</ref> In addition to exchanging recipes with others through the website, users are able to rate and post reviews of recipes they have tried, and to provide suggestions as to how to improve or alter them;<ref name=allrecipes>{{cite web|title=Community Help/FAQ|url=http://allrecipes.com/Help/questions/faq/community.aspx#homepage|work=Allrecipes Customer Support}}</ref> according to the website, "The ratings/reviews...are a valuable resource to our community because they show how the members and their families feel about a recipe. Does the recipe get raves—or does it never get made again? Your opinion counts".<ref name=allrecipes />  This feedback is used to evaluate and classify recipes based upon how successfully they passed through the site's "editorial process" and to what extent they were approved by site members, potentially resulting in receiving "Kitchen approved" status that is comparable to Wikipedia's [[Good Article nominations|"good article" nomination]] process.<ref name=allrecipes /> The site has also augmented its services by including social features such as user blogs and connecting with other social networking/media sites like Facebook<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.facebook.com/allrecipes |title=Allrecipes.com Facebook page |publisher=Facebook.com |date=2009-01-10 |access-date=2011-10-20}}</ref> to expand its presence on the social Web. The recipes found on this website become part of the social web as other members rank them, comment and provide feedback as to why the recipe was good or bad, or to share ways in which they would change it.

The integration of "social" features has also begun to extend into non-Web media forms including print and broadcast. Increasingly prevalent mobile devices have offered a platform for media companies to create hybridised media forms which draw upon the social web, such as the [[Yahoo!7#Fango mobile app|Fango mobile app]] offered by Australian partnership [[Yahoo!7]] which combines traditional TV programming with live online discussions and existing social networking channels.