Enough with "social networking"
Aug. 21st, 2011 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyEdited next day: Various slight additions.
I am tired of hearing about "social networking" sites. The category makes no sense to me.
Take a look at LiveJournal (or DreamWidth, or equivalent). Nobody calls it a "social networking" site because it's not much used anymore outside of Russia (how the hell did that happen, anyway?[0]), but they would if it were started today. What is it, actually? Well, it's a blogging site; a blogging network. You can follow[3] other LJers, and you can even restrict your posts to only be viewable by certain groups of them if you like. (Oh, hey, you know what that sounds a lot like? Google+. Except LJ is better at comments because it actually has threaded comments instead of linear comments. More on that in a moment.) And it even makes things more social-networky by using the term "friend" instead of "follow" or "subscribe". (Terminology and appearance seem to count as much as anything for what gets labeled a "social networking" site.) It also has "communities", which I don't use, but seem relevant to the discussion. And let's not forget that for a time joining required an invite!
(And let's not forget that while I speak of LJ, there were other such sites at the time besides its clones -- remember Xanga? They'd call that a "social networking" site today too; it leaned even more in that direction than LJ, IIRC, though it used the term "subscribe". And even before LJ there was OpenDiary, though I'm just reading that off WP and don't know how exactly it worked.)
OK. So LJ's a blogging network. What's Twitter? To use their own terms, a microblogging network. Right, I mean let's talk about what these sites actually *do*. What was MySpace? Well I avoided it, but as I understand it, it was a network of easy-to-setup-and-make personal home pages, with some blogging/commenting features, with "friending" controlling access rather than being following (though I guess it must have been subscription too with the blogging parts of the site). What's Facebook? I don't know, it's a goddamned mess[4]. What's Google+? It's LJ but with linear comments and a "real name" policy in imitation of Facebook.
(Why is Google+'s real name policy controversial while Facebook's isn't? I can't help but think that it might be because while they can call it a "social networking" site, going by what it actually does, it's a blogging site, and that's what people are using it as, since they aren't using LJ/DW/etc anymore. Or perhaps it's because while it seems to be intended for most people (like Facebook), it seems in practice it's been taken up by internet people, and internet people want pseudonyms. By the way, despite its claim to be an imitator of Facebook, it actually leaves out what I think is Facebook's most important feature -- the ability to post on someone else's wall, i.e., to make a post which is explicitly directed to someone else but which everyone can see. It also just doesn't resemble Facebook very much.)
I don't know about most of these other "social networking" sites that WP lists but some of them sound essentially like networks of message boards or discussion sites. (And some of them are pretty dubious. Tumblr? YouTube?)
There. With the exception of Facebook, which is its own crazy beast and hardly even resembles its older incarnations, these are what these sites actually do. Now can we stick to talking about that?
-Harry
[0]Well, now there are ads, so that's a pretty good reason to use DW instead these days. (I always forget what it looks like to the non-registered.) But I'm pretty sure the ads didn't happen until later.
[3]Equivalently: "subscribe to". I'll use these terms interchangeably.
[4]Here is what I use Facebook for: Reading other people's posts/discussions; using it as a directory of personal info / contact info, both to read others' and to list my own, while controlling who can see it[5]; and posting on other people's walls (more on this in a moment). Posting on my own I only do rarely, when I want to direct something to more than one person, or when I'm making a general announcement that I want as many people as possible to see. Otherwise I save it for Twitter or here. (By the way, you know why originally signed up for Facebook? To poke people. I am entirely serious. In particular, I thought it would be funny to poke![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jonpin.)
[5]This is important -- I have various public profiles on the web, anyone can find how to contact me by email or AIM or XMPP, but only if you're a friend on Facebook will you be able to find e.g. my phone number. I suppose Google+ probably does this too, which I suppose makes it a bit more Facebook-like, but it seems so few people list *any* contact info on Facebook these days. Damned annoying.
I am tired of hearing about "social networking" sites. The category makes no sense to me.
Take a look at LiveJournal (or DreamWidth, or equivalent). Nobody calls it a "social networking" site because it's not much used anymore outside of Russia (how the hell did that happen, anyway?[0]), but they would if it were started today. What is it, actually? Well, it's a blogging site; a blogging network. You can follow[3] other LJers, and you can even restrict your posts to only be viewable by certain groups of them if you like. (Oh, hey, you know what that sounds a lot like? Google+. Except LJ is better at comments because it actually has threaded comments instead of linear comments. More on that in a moment.) And it even makes things more social-networky by using the term "friend" instead of "follow" or "subscribe". (Terminology and appearance seem to count as much as anything for what gets labeled a "social networking" site.) It also has "communities", which I don't use, but seem relevant to the discussion. And let's not forget that for a time joining required an invite!
(And let's not forget that while I speak of LJ, there were other such sites at the time besides its clones -- remember Xanga? They'd call that a "social networking" site today too; it leaned even more in that direction than LJ, IIRC, though it used the term "subscribe". And even before LJ there was OpenDiary, though I'm just reading that off WP and don't know how exactly it worked.)
OK. So LJ's a blogging network. What's Twitter? To use their own terms, a microblogging network. Right, I mean let's talk about what these sites actually *do*. What was MySpace? Well I avoided it, but as I understand it, it was a network of easy-to-setup-and-make personal home pages, with some blogging/commenting features, with "friending" controlling access rather than being following (though I guess it must have been subscription too with the blogging parts of the site). What's Facebook? I don't know, it's a goddamned mess[4]. What's Google+? It's LJ but with linear comments and a "real name" policy in imitation of Facebook.
(Why is Google+'s real name policy controversial while Facebook's isn't? I can't help but think that it might be because while they can call it a "social networking" site, going by what it actually does, it's a blogging site, and that's what people are using it as, since they aren't using LJ/DW/etc anymore. Or perhaps it's because while it seems to be intended for most people (like Facebook), it seems in practice it's been taken up by internet people, and internet people want pseudonyms. By the way, despite its claim to be an imitator of Facebook, it actually leaves out what I think is Facebook's most important feature -- the ability to post on someone else's wall, i.e., to make a post which is explicitly directed to someone else but which everyone can see. It also just doesn't resemble Facebook very much.)
I don't know about most of these other "social networking" sites that WP lists but some of them sound essentially like networks of message boards or discussion sites. (And some of them are pretty dubious. Tumblr? YouTube?)
There. With the exception of Facebook, which is its own crazy beast and hardly even resembles its older incarnations, these are what these sites actually do. Now can we stick to talking about that?
-Harry
[0]Well, now there are ads, so that's a pretty good reason to use DW instead these days. (I always forget what it looks like to the non-registered.) But I'm pretty sure the ads didn't happen until later.
[3]Equivalently: "subscribe to". I'll use these terms interchangeably.
[4]Here is what I use Facebook for: Reading other people's posts/discussions; using it as a directory of personal info / contact info, both to read others' and to list my own, while controlling who can see it[5]; and posting on other people's walls (more on this in a moment). Posting on my own I only do rarely, when I want to direct something to more than one person, or when I'm making a general announcement that I want as many people as possible to see. Otherwise I save it for Twitter or here. (By the way, you know why originally signed up for Facebook? To poke people. I am entirely serious. In particular, I thought it would be funny to poke
jonpin.)[5]This is important -- I have various public profiles on the web, anyone can find how to contact me by email or AIM or XMPP, but only if you're a friend on Facebook will you be able to find e.g. my phone number. I suppose Google+ probably does this too, which I suppose makes it a bit more Facebook-like, but it seems so few people list *any* contact info on Facebook these days. Damned annoying.
