[Air-L] Social network site nomenclature

[Linda.Olsen at infomedia.uib.no]

Sorry for the spam, but a small correction:
I meant to say that SNSs support online AND offline social networks.  
Still, hope you get my point.

:-)

Siterer lol044 at webmail.uib.no:

> Hi Kevin.
>
> I think the reason why some researchers still use "online social
> networks" is that not all social networks on the Internet are bound to
> a SNS.
>
> The way I see it, a SNS refers to a service that supports online social
> networks (such as Facebook or LinkedIn). It would, however, be quite
> tiresome and redundant to refer to them as "online social network
> services", when SNSs no doubt all exist online. Social networks,
> however, do not.
>
> Now, I don't know if some researchers also use ONS when they write
> about Facebook or LinkedIn, but I would expect the term to appear when
> dealing with social networks on the Internet in general, and not when
> dealing explicitly with SNSs.
>
> Anyone agree/disagree?
>
> Linda
>
> Siterer Kevin Guidry <krguidry at gmail.com>:
>
>> All,
>>
>> Much of the available research refers to services such as Facebook and
>> MySpace as "social network(ing) sites/services (SNS)."  Let's ignore
>> for the moment the differences between those four permutations as I'm
>> more interested in learning about why some researchers use "online
>> social networks (ONS)."  SNS seems to be much more common,
>> particularly in the wake of the late 2007 JCMC special theme issue
>> focusing on SNSs.
>>
>> Given that both terms are still in use, is there some sort of subtle
>> cultural or discipline-based divide of which I am unaware?  Or is this
>> just an oddity that isn't important or indicative of anything more
>> than personal preference?
>>
>>
>> Kevin
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