Web 2.0 and social software have long since reached research. Existing examples and even studies show, that researchers use social software during the research process. However, the ways social software can be used to support research work are still not sufficiently explored. In this paper, we suggest that this question can be addresses systematically by means of a simple exploration framework. We base the framework on the research process and the activities connected to it. We use the framework for exemplary consideration of selected social software