Social networking
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Definition
Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals. (Whatis.com)
In educational technology, social networking refers to the professional or education/pedagogical use of social networking software.
One may distinguish two basic genres
- Social linking platforms' that mostly just promote links between entries describing persons. A well known platform for professionals is LinkedIn.
- Social network sites: Platforms that let people create media-rich webpages and manage "friends" on the same platform and that can have various access to contents. The best known example is probably Facebook and pioneers were Frienster and MySpace. A variant of these are platforms to create networks, e.g Ning.
Social network sites
According to Danah Boyd, social network sites can be defined through three features: profiles, friends and comments.
Standards
- FOAF, a RDF standard for linking people (for which various applications exist)
- API standards to script platforms like Facebook and Ning (more details needed plus links to other web 2.0 standards)
Examples of social networking platforms
Examples of linking platforms
- frienster,
- Tribe
- LinkedIn, a friend-of-friend professional network.
- Orkut
- StudiVz - (StudiVZ Wikipedia) Social Networking platform for students.
Example of platforms to promote exchange
- Ning social network platform. "Create Your Own Social Network for Anything". This is quite interesting, also more interested in web 2.0 standardization efforts than Facebook
- Think.com
- Facebook (not just homepages for the idle, it does have some interesting features and networks, including an API)
Links
References
- Boyd, Danah (2007). Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?, The Knowledge Tree, 2007.