I can remember back in high school when I had my myspace and you could categorize your top friends. My sister would always get mad if she got moved to number two. It is crazy because she is my sister, who is also in my top “friends”. A term that can now be applied more broadly. On facebook you can now categorize your friends if they have a personal connection to you such as mother, sister, cousin..etc. Networks have been changing as peoples needs changes and depending on the site and the structure, then that will influence how we act and what we do on those sites.

Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.

Beer (2008) states the difficulty that boyd and Ellison’s use of the term social network sites creates is that it becomes too broad, it stands in for too many things, it is intended to do too much of the analytical work, and therefore makes a differentiated typology of these various user-generated web applications more problematic.

I tend to agree more with Boyd and Ellison even though their definition is a little broad. Personally, Facebook is the best of both worlds for me because I do have those people that  I know and share a connection, that I built relationships with. However, I mostly go for the entertainment and to pass time, and also of course to keep up with family and friends. I think, that social networking sites differ in that you do not necessarily have to share a common interest with all your friends whereas an online community that has a specific interest or topic can bring people together.