[Air-L] Social network site nomenclature

['Gail Taylor]

Danah's definitions for "online social network" and "online social networking" both suggest that online technologies are foundation to enabling and supporting network structures and networking practices and processes. What are online technologies? Based on the context of this particular conversation (who the participants are, what we know about the topics, personal digital fluency levels, etc.), it is possible to infer that the Internet is the platform that supports and also enables social interactions and also that Internet-based products and services, such as Facebook, are also part of the mix. Can we assume that this same meaning of online technologies will transfer to other settings where there are more diverse points of view as well as levels of digital literacy among members of conversations? My thinking is that the definitions should be more explicit to address transference issues. 

I'm also wondering whether the designations "social network sites" and "social networking sites" are redundant due to technological developments allowing users of social network services, such as Facebook, to build capabilities into the software program that allows users to map (visualize) their personal networks and those of other subscribers. Is it time to consider collapsing these two designations into one to account for this technological shift? I personally think the time is 'ripe' based on the pace of technological developments and also research that is being conducted to promote a stages of development perspective of the Internet (e.g. Web 1.0 --> Web 2.0 --> Web 3.0 --> . . . . ). 

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Gail Taylor, Ph.D. (ABD)
Human Resource Education University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Graduate School of Library and Information Science Graduate Instructor and Teaching Assistant (LIS 201 IT and Organizations, LIS 202 Social Aspects of IT)


>Message: 6
>Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 22:51:16 -0400
>From: danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org>
>Subject: Re: [Air-L] Social network site nomenclature
>To: Nicole Ellison <nellison at msu.edu>
>Cc: Linda.Olsen at infomedia.uib.no, air-l at listserv.aoir.org
>Message-ID: <7D0F58D5-81E3-447E-B00D-C5B81F714A50 at danah.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>Here's an uber short definition for how I think about these terms  
>(concurring with many of the previous respondents):
>
>- Social network: ties between people, regardless of mediating  

>infrastructure [think what sociologists study]
>
>- Online social network: ties between people that exist within or are  
>created because of online technologies
>
>- Social networking: the practice of building one's social network,  
>regardless of mediating infrastructure [think what business  
>professionals are interested in]
>
>- Online social networking: the practicing of building one's social  
>network using online technologies
>
>- Social network site: websites that support the articulation,  
>display, and utilization of social networks [see "Social Network  
>Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship for a proper definition]
>
>- Social networking site: websites that center on the practice of  
>social networking, whether for business or pleasure [many communities  
>of interest, business networking, and online dating sites fit into  
>this category]
>
>
>In our JCMC special issue, Nicole and I explicitly wanted to pull out  
>the category of new sites exemplified by Facebook, MySpace, etc. While  
>they are a subset of online communities, they are both structurally  
>different than many of them and engender very different practices.  We  
>wanted to use nomenclature that captured those differences.  Of  
>course, plenty of folks continue to talk about them as social  
>networkING sites and academics, journalists, and marketers frequently  
>clump online dating sites and community sites into this new glittery  
>genre, but we were trying to explicitly avoid this.  There is no doubt  
>that a whole lot of sites out there support networking, but that's not  
>what we were trying to highlight when we put together the JCMC special  
>issue.
>
>What this means is that I would call Facebook a social network site.   
>I would call Match.com a social networking site.  And I would call  
>LinkedIn both a social network site and a social networking site  
>(depending on whether I was talking about the structure or the  
>practice).  I would talk about all of them as CMC and social media.  I  
>would say that all of them support online social networks (and social  
>networks more broadly).
>
>At the end of the day, the big thing to me that makes a social network  
>site a social network site is the articulation, display, and  
>utilization of one's social network.  This requires a profile, but a  
>profile alone does not make a social network site.
>
>As for sites vs. services...  Originally, I was conceiving of sites to  
>be those website-only environments and services to be a broader  
>category that would include mobile apps, downloadable apps, etc.  But  
>these lines are increasingly blurry.  Now that both FB and MS have  
>mobile apps and most mobile apps have a website as well, it's hard to  
>distinguish the two categories.  So I'm a big agnostic about this.  My  
>inclination these days is to call them all sites to highlight the  
>digitally mediated component of it (cuz services don't have the same  
>digital ring as sites), but I can be totally convinced otherwise.
>
>Anyhow, I hope that helps.  I am totally welcome to critiques on how  
>I'm thinking about it but, in my head at least, there's some coherence  
>to these different categories.
>
>danah
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>"taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
>http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
>http://www.danah.org/
>@zephoria
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