Social Networking: In Need of Definition

This morning, the New York Times reported about social networking’s next incarnation with the development of networks within corporate

America. Unfortunately, the phrase ‘social networking’ has been used in so many different contexts its meaning has morphed to the point where it’s not clear what the term means anymore. In the sixdegrees context – we always talked about social networking as meeting the people you don’t know through the people you already know. We defined degrees as a measurement in people from you, beginning with relationships you had that preceded your involvement in a website. My college roommate is my first degree. His friend from high school is my second degree.

At I Stand For, a political technology consulting company I founded in 2003, we brought social networking in the truest sense to political campaigns. I remember pitching one of our early gubernatorial clients on the value of endorsements. I told him that people cared less what prominent politicians had to say about him and more what their mother or other people in their first degree had to say about him. This latter type of endorsement led to honest creation of a social networking brought to political campaigns. We wrapped it a module called ‘endorsements.’

The same can’t be said of most ‘social networks’ on the web today. Whether its MySpace, or Twitter, or Nike’s new social network, most friends are found on the site and are based on common interests, rather than a prior connection that existed offline. In the 90’s we called this an online community, not a social network.Years ago, we predicted at sixdegrees that one social network would eventually overlay the entire Internet and that different applications would sit on top of that network. This type of ‘infrastructure’ paradigm seems to be gaining traction for a company like Plaxo, but for most second generation social networks, it seems to be moving in the opposite direction. My prediction: in the future, one or two serious social networks will occupy dominant positions and play the same role as that of your local White Pages of telephone numbers. There will be lots of communities, some dominant, some local in nature, some a combination of the two, that will play meaningful roles in how people interact (including dating).

With any luck, the definitions for a social network and online community will also morph over time so we can all understand the distinctions.