Social networking

Draft

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 (profiles). 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

• Social Networking in Schools Gets a Boost from NSBA

• | Schoolboards: net danger over-rated; bring social networks to school

References

• Boyd, Danah (2007). Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?, The Knowledge Tree, 2007.