The Internet of Things (IoT) aims to create a global ubiquitous ecosystem composed of large numbers of heterogeneous devices. To achieve this vision, the World Wide Web is emerging as a suitable candidate to interconnect IoT devices and services at the application layer into a Web of Things (WoT).However, the WoT is evolving towards large silos of things, and thus the vision of a global ubiquitous ecosystem is not fully achieved. Furthermore, even if the WoT facilitates mashing up heterogeneous IoT devices and services, existing approaches result in static IoT mashups that cannot adapt to dynamic environments and evolving user requirements. The latter emphasizes another well-recognized challenge in the IoT, that is enabling people to interact with a vast, evolving, and heterogeneous IoT.To address the above limitations, we propose an architecture for an open and self-governed IoT ecosystem composed of people and things situated and interacting in a global environment sustained by heterogeneous platforms. Our approach is to endow things with autonomy and apply the social network metaphor to createflexible networks of people and autonomous things. We base our approach on results from multi-agent and WoT research, and we call the envisioned IoT ecosystem the Social Web of Things.Our proposal emphasizes heterogeneity, discoverability and flexible interaction in the IoT. In the same time, it provides a low entry-barrier for developers and users via multiple layers of abstraction that enable them to effectively cope with the complexity of the overall ecosystem. We implement several application scenarios to demonstrate these features.