I am jumping into a very old discussion - not because I have perverse pleasures in kick-starting things outside of their temporal plane (well, maybe I do, but ah well!) - but I didn't the time to read this thread in detail before now, and was very intrigued by the different ways in which people are trying to respond to this question which often emerges in a variety of cybercultures nomenclature as different disciplines approach the same object with different understandings and ideas. One of the ways in which I have always understood the difference between SNS and ONS is through the metaphor of geographical space. Social Networking Sites, for me, are necessarily bound to a digital/virtual space which brings together different users/participants/players etc. in a digital environment that shapes their communication, behaviour and activities within that environment. However, the ONS is an idea of scattered geographies. Members in an Online Social Network might belong to different digital spaces and might have over-laps with some spaces in particular digital environments but not necessarily all of them. An example that a colleague (who works as an information architect and is a stickler for the correct names) once gave me was through the popular blogging site Livejournal. He said that Livejournal itself is a social networking site because it expects people to come together in a particular environment and then consolidates all their activities within prescribed formats and structures. On the other hand, Delicious, is an Online social network, where, even though the users are subscribing and logging in, they are inheriting their various social networks (inclluding livejournal) and bringing them together. Or in other words, he had suggested, that the ONS is more of a meta-structure that aggregates various social networking sites under one umberlla. Following this, of course, one starts wondering about Facebook and what FB would/should be called. On the one hand, FB serves as a social networking site where clearly, through a series of activities, users communicate and network online. However, with its ability to also aggregate other social networking sites data through third party apps, FB also seems to be working as an Online Social Network - at least for me, where many of my friends, who are not on FB (Orkut is still quite popular in India), can still interact with different things I do on FB because of embedded apps. Anyway, that's about it. Just wanted to give in my very delayed two cents worth. Cbeers Nishant On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Kevin Guidry <krguidry@gmail.com> wrote:
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 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376