According to Boyd and Ellison, social network sites are web-based services that allow individuals to do many computer-related activities. These activities include: 1. constructing a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, 2. articulating lists of other uses with whom they share a connection, and 3. viewing and traversing their list of connections and those made by others within the system. Dr. Beer, however, defines social networking sites as having numerous capabilities other than those expected from readers of Boyd and Ellison’s article. He states that forming friendships is not the key objective of these sites, which causes them to be far different than sites categorized as online communities.
The definitions of social networks told by these two articles both have accurate suggestions, but I have to admit that I agree more with Boyd and Ellison’s definition rather than that of Dr. Beer. They stated that these sites will allow them to see and compare statements made by other individuals about a particular topic. This description shows striking similarities to online communities, which also allow people to find common interests by talking about a similar topic. However, Dr. Beer states that members of social networks differ from those of online communities in that they usually talk solely about the topic and leave personal matters out of the chat. If that is truly the case, then I’ll take an online community over these strict topic chats any day.
I strongly agree with you that the Boyd and Ellison’s definision is valuable one, but I still think that Dr. Beer had a point describing the term networking as a broad one. His suggestion also must be valued. However, in online communities you make connections with strangers, people that you never met before, this may lead into stronger relatioships and closer one. One the other side the social networking you have connections with people that you already know ( old freinds, coworkers, classmates) and you can through these relations make new connections with new people even if you have no common interest to begin with the relationship.
One of the reasons that Boyd and Ellison’s definition somewhat invalid is that some SNS sites allow business or brands to create profiles. Most people are not really having connections or interactions with these brands other then to consume the information. SNS sites are evolving into a into more complicated definition.