From http://www.prweb.com
Norman, Okla. December 3, 2007

Yuwie.com, one of the Internet�s newest social networking sites, today announced the details behind their innovative and highly successful new online business model. �MySpace and Facebook have already proven how business can make money from the efforts of end-users,� said Korry Rogers, founder and CEO of Yuwie. �Yuwie is proving that both businesses and end-users can finally share the $100 million per month advertising revenue that floods into the social networking market today.�Rogers explains that Yuwie�s business model is based upon two core tenants:

1) End-user participation is free � no sign-up fees or subscription fees are required.

2) Yuwie currently distributes well over half of the site�s advertising revenue back to participating end-users.

Not only are Yuwie�s end-users paid for the traffic generated for their own personal page, but also for the traffic generated by friends they refer to the site, in addition to traffic generated from their friends� subsequent referrals (for up to ten (10) layers or generations of personal referrals). “The revenue potential for end-users is striking and very exciting once you start to run the numbers;� explained Rogers. “If someone only refers three of their friends, who refer three of their friends through ten levels, that one person will ultimately collect a percentage of advertising revenues from about 88,000 end-users, which can translate to about $8,800 per month for that person � every month.”So far, end-users� response to Yuwie�s new business model has completely shattered initial projections by attracting 300,000 registered members to Yuwie�s brand of social networking � in just five (5) months. Moreover, Yuwie�s growing page views, which currently total 1,800,000 per day, have catapulted the website�s global ranking from below the top 100,000 list, to one of the top 2,500 websites in the world. About Yuwie.com Yuwie (www.yuwie.com) is the world�s first social networking site that truly allows end-users to collect a percentage of online advertising revenues generated from the website. By integrating end-user personalization, social networking tools, and monthly income potential for end-users, Yuwie appears poised to usher in the next-generation of online business.

Posted: 1/19/2008 at 23:58

So you see there can be some value to social nework sites!!

social network technologies aka social networking technologies: online or offline technologies that relate to (1) public or semi-public profiles (2) articulating the connections between actors (users, people, organizations) and (3) viewing and traversing the lists of connections for self and others

On #2, I changed things slightly from their “(2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection” because I think it’s important to handle the case where it is not the users themselves articulating the list of connections — They Rule clearly [at least to me ] should fall under the ‘social network technologies’ umbrella, even though the people themselves didn’t enter the information.

Thoughts on that?

Returning to Vicki’s point above, I agree that a different name is appropriate for what you do in schools. Whatever the right term is, these educationally-focused networks potentially include functionality like file sharing, communication (chat and discussion forums), information networking technologies (del.icio.us), and social networking technologies (profiles, connections). Some of the important connections here include “classmate”, “teacher/student”, “past teacher/student”, “collaborator” (on a project), and so on.

John Dodds is correct in his first post about the gap between what the general public understands and what the technorati mean.

And it is unfortunate that this was edited out of the article that Danah referenced:

“Because the term ‘networking’ emphasizes relationship initiation, often with strangers, it can and has been expanded to refer to any site that allows people to communicate with people that they do not know, including dating sites, chatrooms, community sites, and bulletin boards.”

I will leave it to Danah, Nicole and others to provide a workable solution to this rhetorical problem. I can tell that there will be continual confusion about the terms because they employ the same words, and I say this as a rhetorician with a Ph.D. in English and as a journalist who communicates with the public.

Keep in mind that I was invited to participate in the Economist debates because of my investigative pieces on Facebook and MySpace and my academic presentations. For instance, I and others had a top paper at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication on coverage of Facebook in metro and student newspapers, using framing metholodologies. These are social network sites. That is my speciality. My presentations on these sites focused on corporate branding and infiltration into academe of media conglomerates purchasing these sites. For instance, Facebook had a distinct brand formerly that was grounded in physical place–a particular campus. I was quoted about that in USA Today and other national media, in as much as I felt that the revamped site was trying to compete with MySpace by blurring brands–a strategy that paid off in revenue at the expense of facilitating interpersonal contact in physical space. I critiqued MoSoSo sites because of concerns about stalking as the affinity groups assembled around them were about hookups, initially at least, and my students, many of them Women’s Studies majors, were concerned about that.

Keep in mind as well that the term “facebook” refers to an admissions document in the paper era so that strangers in residence halls or academic cohorts could learn from each other. So in a sense, these sites alluded to a publication whose purpose further confuses the issue here, because one can revise Danah and Nicole’s deleted definition to describe those booklets:

“Because facebooks in residence halls emphasize relationship initiation, often with strangers, it refers to a publication that allows students to communicate with people in their cohort whom they do not know.”

As for me, remember that I anticipated that my invitation to participate in the Economist debate also involved my work in social network sites that are the focus of my research. Some, but not all, of my remarks in the opening pertained to social network sites; more, but not all, in my rebuttal pertained to social networks, social network sites, and social networking sites. My summation will pertain to all three.

But you cannot ask the general audience to make academic distinctions with these terms, especially since Facebook and MySpace and their popularity have by convention and media use appropriated all those terms, which again involves my research and how media and marketing are overshadowing the excellent work of researchers, including Danah and Nicole.

I had the same issue with magazine journalism, distinct from newspaper journalism. The disciplines varied from each other in substantive ways but the terminologies were similar, though each had diverse meaning. Example: A feature story in a newspaper is something apart from hard news, perhaps a lifestyle story. A feature in magazine is a manuscript between 1000-2000 words. An article in newspaper lingo can mean anything. In magazine, it’s 2000-words plus that focuses in depth on an issue. I could go on with about 101 other terms. Finally I wrote a text with a glossary to distinguish terms. We need the same thing here.

Others commenting above have more expertise than I in how to accomplish a workable distinction in terms. As a practical matter, we cannot use the same words for three different meanings.

In closing, all of this concerrs my main objection with how technology is being taught on campus. We’re emphasizing presentation and the social of social networking rather than the network and its nature, which is more scientific and appropriate at Iowa State University, an institution of science, by the way. Our official name is Iowa State University of Science and Technology. If we are ever to use these technologies effectively in the classroom, we must rely less on engagement and more on serious study, which comes with its own set of problems complicated again by corporate convention and revenue generation at the expense of salary, facilities and tuition.

Social is a misnomer and also harms the proposal of using the tools in the first place because it reinforces the thought that these tools are just a mini playground for teenagers.

it is ALWAYS for the benefit of the designer or owner first, and only by accident later, of benefit for the user

see “ploy”, “scam”, “ruse” in your local dictionary