Social Networks: What they are and their importance

What is a Social Networking Site (SNSs)?

A social networking, in its most basic form, helps people connect with one another based on shared interests or activities. It can connect strangers with very specific interests, political beliefs or some social networking sites cater to certain audience’s based on common languages, religions, gender, race or shared identities.

 

Boyd and Ellison produced a rather succinct overview of SNSs definition. Their definition of SNSs are:

“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.”

For a future Social Networking Site it would appear by the above approved definition that having users, who are connected by a common trait and can connect to those who share this interest is enough to be defined as a SNS. Boyd and Ellison make it clear that people do not actually need to be “networking” within these sites and may only contact those within their existing extended social network.

An SNS has a number of technical features such as:

• Visible profiles.
• Displays other users of the system.
• Profiles are unique pages.
• Profiles contain information such as age/sex/location and interests.
• Most sites encourage the uploading of a photo.
• The visibility of the profile differs from site to site (some allow it to stay private, others allow it to be visible to anyone online).
• A public display of a connection.
• A mechanism to leave messages.
• Photo-sharing/video-sharing capabilities.
• Designed to be widely accessible.

This is not a mandatory list of features for a new social networking site but is a useful pointer to what we currently understand as components of a SNS.

Social networks are varied and support a wide range of interests and practices. The cultures that emerge from the numerous SNSs that are available is equally varied. The market for SNSs may appear fairly saturated with an abundance of sites and a small band of sites, such as Facebook, that are dominating the market. Thus any new site must be original and find a niche that will attract users to take part in the service if they are to be successful.

Be Seated as an SNS

Be Seated has incorporated many of these features such as:

1. Has Users.
2. Connected by their interest in entertainments/sports and attending venues.
3. User-generated content.
4. Can review, post and comment on the site (interaction).
5. Integration with other SNSs and the ability to utilise their platforms to share, collaborate and connect with those with shared interests.
6. A way to leave messages.
7. Photo-sharing.
8. Widely accessible.

The power of SNSs?

SNSs are often portrayed as transformative. They have been said to have an effect of helping people connect despite geographic isolation or inciting revolutions against despotic leaders. While their impact in certain contexts can be debated, one thing that cannot is their popularity. For any prospective SNS it is encouraging to see that they remain relevant and users continue to rely on them for a myriad of purposes. As the graph at the top of the page has indicated, that no matter of the age, a high proportion of internet users have used some sort of SNS service. Research [see below], albeit from 5 years ago, suggests that those who become accustomed to SNSs and sharing are unlikely to give up this trait. If anything the phenomena of SNSs appears here to stay.

We can therefore infer that developing a new SNS is not a wholly worthless task. There is huge competition with some giant sites such as Facebook that loom large over any new site. Despite this there should be enough space to carve out a popular site if the idea is strong enough. In tandem with this internet users seem to be on a steady path of adopting SNSs in their lives and online behaviour and indications suggest that this is not something they are going to abandon in the near future, thus it is a space that can support a business for decades rather than just be a flash in the pan, so long as the site and service are attractive to users.

 

References

Anderson, J. and Rainie, L. (2010). Millennials will make online sharing in networks a lifelong habit. [online] Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/07/09/millennials-will-make-online-sharing-in-networks-a-lifelong-habit/ [Accessed 21 Apr. 2015].

Boyd, D. and Ellison, N. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), pp.210-230.

Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, (2013). Social Networking Fact Sheet. [online] Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/ [Accessed 21 Apr. 2015].