my experience is: Scrabble in and get 66% unrelated and 20% odious spam exploitation out

I tend to think of “networking” as instrumental. One networks to get something. Joel Podonly, a highly regarded network analyst now at Harvard says “by the time you need to network – it’s too late.” We can use the networks we have built in our lives for information and lots of cool stuff, but they are not built by trying to get things out of people, they are built by giving to or exchanging things with people. If someone goes to a party to sell real estate, there are lots of influence techniques he or she can use to develop rapport with someone he or she meets, and sometimes that can be effective. The individuals may become part of that person’s social networks. But to think of this a all of what social networks are is missing the core of social networks.

Because of how much we learn by social learning, social networks teach us, they give words meaning, they are the source of or beliefs and values, they even influence and to some degree create or personalities. Our very personhood come from context.

To the point it never occurred to me that the term was inaccurate. But, in all honesty…I think it could even generally refer to a blog community like those found on ie. Blogspot, Blogsome, etc etc.

After all, arent the conventional social networking websites taking on text blog features now? And even video/music blogging etc.?

The same is almost true of blogs…the hardworking bloggers or at least those who’d like to retain more of their identity without having a MySpace or Facebook brand, go to the extent of adding features so that their friends, visitors can not only just visit but can also leave comments or chat. Or drop in to view a video or listen to music.

From what I understand – Social networks (online)or social networking sites create the structures (blogs, photo sharing sites etc etc) for peeps to locate each other and communicate (if they wish), or even keep friends and relatives in the know about going-ons. Too lazy to mass email peeps about how your weekend turned out? Just send them link to your blog. IMHO. (Or is there another term for this relationship structure and way of communication?)

thank you so much

-Justin Ellis

At their best, these sites (whatever the end up being called) support social networks by providing additional communications & sharing tools, and (most exciting to me personally) encouraging people to think about the many interpersonal connections they already have in their lives. This can, I think, lead to a moment of enlightment as more people realize that we are all connected.

In practice, however, it seems that most of these sites just get in the way of existing networks — either through ad saturation like evite, or poorly designed and/or unusably slow UI like so many, or easily foreseen privacy debacles and general FUD like we’ve seen recently with myspace, facebook, etcetera.

But with any of those, it seems to me that social networks are still very much the core of what these sites are offering and/or trying to capitalize upon — so perhaps the term still fits.

Here’s the thing… Networking is *perceived* as problematic by most parents AND it’s not what most youth do. It obfuscates their primary practice and improperly conveys the intention of most users on most of these systems. The sites originally positioned themselves as “social networks” without the site. The phrase “social networking site” came about through the media. And you will often hear parents on TV ask why their teens need to be networking. (And it’s not just a matter of for business, it’s for anything.)

I think it’s great that some folks are networking on these sites but i think to assume that it’s the primary practice is problematic. It’s a framing issue.

Lauren – i like your point about [repartitioning] but i think that it’s not what people hear. And it’s certainly not what the sociologists hear when folks talk about social networking as a practice.

While social media is great for an overarching term, there are good reasons to talk about this particular kind of site and namely, the primary feature that is being offered: the explicit articulation of “friends” that results in a visible network that people can navigate. In this way, i talk about LinkedIn and an SNS but not as a public where folks hang out. It’s pretty asocial in that way.

And I’d like to second Heidi Adkisson’s objection to your notion that business networking is inherently false– it certainly CAN be false, but just because networking has an over and capitalist agenda doesn’t make the connections, when they occur, any less genuine than in an environment bounded by a school affiliation (Facebook) or no affilation (MySpace) or any other affiliation (Tribe, Gather…). I’ve made real friends in all my careers, and also made acquaintances with whom I hang out only while I’m in that field.

One failure as a social network — speaking only from my own experience — is LinkedIn. It’s a handy service and I use it regularly, but it seems to only be a resource, a space, rather than an online place where I’d go to connect with folks in a more meaningful way.

This all lends pressure to the question about what defines an online community. Michael Gilbert of the Center for the Digital Future and I have a running debate about whether dating sites count as online communities. He thinks they don’t. I think they do. Just because somebody joins a community with an agenda and with only a transient commitment to the community, as in many dating sites, that doesn’t, to my way of thinking, make the community any less a community. We certainly tend to think of our schools as communities, but we’re only in those for a short time and with a clear agenda.

More generally still, I think that it IS worthwhile to, as Ms. Boyd has done in her initial post, take seriously the needs and opinions of traditional social scientists. The commercially available internet is still relatively new, and so being able to communicate productively with traditional social science seems worthwhile, particularly if we want to advocate for the internet within those communities.

All best,

Brad Berens, Ph.D.
Exec Editor
iMedia Communications
http://www.imediaconnection.com
& now blogging at
http://www.mediavorous.com