[Air-L] Social network site nomenclature

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 00:52:57 +1000 (EST)
>From: Christopher Lueg <christopher.lueg at utas.edu.au>  
>Subject: Re: [Air-L] Social network site nomenclature  
>To: air-l at aoir.org
>
>On Wed, 13 May 2009, Caroline Haythornthwaite wrote:
>
>> Social networking sites (SNSs) are online sites which provide the 
>> technical infrastructure for social networking. While the term is used, 
>> and I'd say reserved for online sites, the concept of a social 
>> networking site could also apply to offline settings as well -- after 
>> all, what is a pub for if not a social networking site.
>
>Totally agree. Just like a pub can be a superior place for knowledge 
>management. Back to topic: so what in the difference between social 
>networking sites and 'regular' online community sites then? Is it possible 
>to draw a line?

A good question, and one that I answer this way -- Community is a hypothesis 
to be tested, i.e., you can't know you've got a 'community' until you look at 
what people are doing, with whom. Some people within a giant SNS will develop 
and maintain a community through that tool and probably others; other people 
will not be part of a community even if spending a lot of time in an SNS. Same 
for 'regular' online communities. The distinction to me is whether the 
individuals involved pay attention to each other, making and creting their own 
norms of interaction, or whether it is site managers who make the rules, with 
individuals oriented to something other than the site.  

(In a continuing work in progress, I've explored this extensively in a paper 
discussing the differences between crowdsourcing and virtual community - [https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/handle/2142/9457])

Also, it's a question that keeps us all in business :)

/Caroline


--------------------------------------
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820
haythorn at illinois.edu OR haythorn at uiuc.edu