I'm a bit late but i thought i'd pipe up since i've been following the terms... Press and parents often use the term "social networking to describe what their teens are doing, but this is not the language of youth. Part of the reason for this is that the youth are not networking. This is where i think that the term has been flawed and why i call the sites "social network sites." What makes them unique and important is not the ability to engage in networking, but the ability to model out a social network in a visible way. When you're willing to let go of the sites as one practice, you'll find all sorts of -ing terms embedded within: friending, commenting, messaging (i.e. private messaging), copy/pasting or making layouts, etc. Youth distinguish between these because participation on social network sites varies tremendously. I don't think a generic term will arise from the youth to discuss practices across social network sites. I think that you will continue to see more and more use of the proprietary name, just as you hear youth talk about "googling" things. Also, regarding the comments on Facebook vs. MySpace, i'm trying to write up an essay about my data on this. The short answer is that it's classed at the high school level in the US. Working class kids, subcultural kids, queer kids, kids of color, etc. are using MySpace. College-bound kids, "good" kids, wealthy kids, sporty kids, etc. are all using Facebook. This has changed in the last year. It plays out some in college. If you go to a Latino-dominated community college, you're far more likely to see MySpace be the force. But if you're teaching a a 4-year institution, MySpace is barely visible except in the artist, queer, and subcultural communities. More on this on my blog shortly. danah - - - - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - - - - "taken out of context i must seem so strange" musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts