stacked! the social software experience

Many people have pointed towards Thomas Vander Wal's social software stack. I like it and I think it can be interpreted in a couple of ways:

• As a set of functions that a social software offering must provide to be of use and succeed.
• As a description of the social software user experience.

The two are not necessarily identical. A function can provide different experiences and an experience can involve multiple functions.

Each of the active elements involves interaction between identities using an object or objects in potentially different way. An important thing to remember is that while TVW provides an order to the active elements in terms of functionality provided, multiple active elements may be occurring at the same time in terms of user experience - e.g. I may Share as the result of a Relationship and build my Reputation.