Good point, and Nicole Ellison has pointed out to me that she and danah boyd use 'Social Network Site' precisely to get away from the 'working' part of it. Site or service -- don't know. /C ---- Original message ----

Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 16:55:42 +0200 From: Linda.Olsen@infomedia.uib.no Subject: Re: [Air-L] Social network site nomenclature To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org

Hi Caroline.

To me, your definitions make very much sense, and very nicely sums up some of the throughts I have had on the subject myself, but have not been able to articulate well enough. Well done. Personally, I see the term SNS as reserved for online settings, though I realize it could apply to offline settings as you mention.

I do, however, have some issues with regard to the appropriate use of the term SNS. Should the N stand for "networking" og "network"? Should the last S stand for "site" or "service"?

I have for many years used the term "social networking service" when studying LinkedIn. To me this has made sense, as LinkedIn both supports the explicit act of networking and acts as a service for this purpose. As such, I have also used the term "social networking service" when describing other SNSs such as Facebook. Some reserachers have, however, argued that sites/services such as Facebook are not primarily for networking, but for maintaining social networks and that "network" therefore is more appropriate and would give a broader/better description of such sites/services. I have given it some thought and see the point that is being made.

When it comes to the term "service" or "site", I have stuck with service as I see LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. as providers of some sort of extra service to their members, beyond that of ordinary websites.

I would love to hear yours, and others, throughts about this subject!

:-)

Linda

Siterer Caroline Haythornthwaite <haythorn@illinois.edu>:

...

As one who tries to make a clear distinction between "social networks" and "social networking", let me see if this distinction makes sense to others.

Social networks are created and maintained by ties between people. They are studied using social network analysis, a formal set of techniques now being more widely used and identified under the label of "network science". There is no online or offline separation for social networks -- they exist, emerge and are maintained based on ties between people whether these happen via online and/or offline means.

Social networking I take to mean a deliberate, active pursuit of ties with other people -- from the business sense of social networking as something you do to make and keep business contacts, to the friend making in MySpace, Facebook, etc.

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.

And, yes, social networks emerge and are maintained through social networking via social network sites. The distinction is that social networks emerge in lots of ways, not *just* through the deliberate strategy of social networking, nor just through social networking sites.

Comments please as I really do try to make these distinctions clear and bug people not to call my work 'social networking'!

/Caroline

---- Original message ----

...

Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 22:25:00 -0400 From: Kevin Guidry <krguidry@gmail.com> Subject: [Air-L] Social network site nomenclature To: air-l@aoir.org

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

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