Social Networking Sites
Or
How I Learned to Love Blogs, Wikis, Nings, Bings & SNSs
Submitted by Kay Dean
In Partial Fulfillment of the Class
EDU 255

Well, having been a novice to the world of social networking sites, Facebook was my first foray into the arena. Prior to this class, I would have shunned any kind of site that would have me put my picture up for the world to see. Heck, now my picture is all over the world, in less than a month. I joined a Math/Science Portal (MSP2) ning and now have been asked to join their teacher education group. I am emailing people I don’t know, where I used to hit the delete button if even a slightly “suspicious” name showed up in my mail list.

This particular assignment intrigued me, so as I viewed the graph composed by Danah Boyd of UC Berkeley and Nicole Ellison, MSU, I was surprised that there weren’t more on the graph on page 6 of the article. So, then I decided to read the article : ).

Upon reading the article, I found out there are “hundreds of SNSs”. Scholars and researchers have spent untold time, energy and money to study SNSs to figure out why people initiate, join and follow these sites. The authors state that “networking is not the primary function on many SNSs.” I found that statement as something on which I could cogitate.

Another interesting comment made in this article is that SNSs are unique, not that they enables strangers to meet, but that they allow users to articulate and make visible their social networks. Thus, individuals can connect who might not otherwise meet, but who have shared off-line interests. The structure that is set up as to access, and visibility is one of the primary ways that an SNS differentiates itself from another SNS. Both private messaging and public comments are popular on the major SNSs, but not all SNSs have these features.

These SNS sites vary in the history of how they started out. Some started out as IMs, community sites, ethnic discussion forum tools, or blogging services, to mention a few. A large number of these “early” (1995) sites re-launched later on, adding SNS features and structures. Interestingly, Orkut was launched in the United States with an English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking Brazilians quickly became the dominant user group (Kopytoff, 2004). Are you ready for this? There are even SNSs for dogs and cats, but to quote the authors, “their owners must manage their profiles”. SNSs usually have a global target audience in mind, but often that changes to be more homogeneous as the adage “birds of a feather flock together” occurs. The first recognizable SNS was launched in 1997 - SixDegrees.com. After only three years, SixDegrees.com closed because of its lack of becoming a sustainable business. Some folks think SixDegrees was ahead of its time.

An SNS launched to assist in business ventures in 2001. These business people linked together to support each other in their business. They believed they could survive without competing. The site closed two years later. So much for altruism. A dating site, Friendster, became “one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history (Chafkin, 2007, p. 1). This happened because their servers were unable to handle the sudden growth and Friendster began restricting activities of its most ardent followers. So, the fans of the site began to think the company did not share their interests. However, folks in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia were loving the site!! After Friendster closed, Tom Anderson started MySpace, to attract disenfranchised Friendster fans. No one paid much attention. MySpace allowed underage users so soon bands and fans were being connected. Still not too much attention was directed MySpace’s way. Then in 2005, News Corporation bought My Space for $580 (followed by six zeros!) There has been negative media attention about sexual predators on MySpace. Research suggests that the concerns were exaggerated. In the Endnotes it states: Although one out of seven teenagers received unwanted sexual solicitations online, only 9% came from people over the age of 25 (Wolak, Mitchell & Finkelhor, 2006). Furthermore, only .08% of students surveyed. . .met someone in person from an online encounter without permission from a parent.

In 2003 Clay Shirky (2003) coined the term YASNS (Yet Another Social Networking Service). I love Couchsurfing – it links travelers to couch potatoes. The SNS that I chose to report on, MyChurch, joins Christian churches and their members. Blogging services with SNS features became popular. The authors note that Facebook was designed to support distinct college networks only, and it began in 2004 as a Harvard-only SNS (Cassiday, 2006). It was considered relatively closed and folks thought of Facebook as an intimate, private community. Facebook users are unable to make their full profiles public to all users. MyChurch seeks a narrower audience. Being an affiliation-focused site, MyChurch limits their target and thus is a smaller SNS. After reading this article, I now know what a Ning is – a platform and hosting service that encourages a user to create his/her own SNS!!

According to this article SNSs are primarily organized around people, not interests. That, also will take some cogitating on my part. Thus, we have a new organizational framework for online communities, those structured as person or egocentric. Interestingly enough, according to the authors, the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and 4th amendment “is not equipped to address social network sites”. They cite the example of whether or not a police officer can access information over an SNS without a warrant.

Also interesting is that librarians are against proposed U.S legislation that would ban minors from accessing SNSs at libraries, but that most librarians see SNSs as outside the purview of librarianship. I didn’t know that there have been accusations that there is nothing educational about SNSs.

The MyChurch SNS’s home page brags, “We’ll change the way you think about church.” The site was founded on January 26, 206 targeting folks who have “. . .been out of church for awhile, don’t see yourself as the “church type,” or just love the adventure of something new, now’s the time for you to get in on a fresh start.” What some people are saying about the MyChurch site is: I loved EVERYTHING about MyChurch. I’ll be back next week” “MyChurch is not your typical church. We can’t wait for next Sunday”. “I’ve been looking for a church like MyChurch for a long time. I’m so glad it’s finally here.”

The site has thousands of churches all over the United States. The site accepts donations “to help folks find their way back to God” at a P.O. Box in Columbus, Georgia. I skimmed their beliefs. No, I will NOT be joining them! There are a lot of personal reasons for this. One of which is, they believe that “the Bible is God’s word, written by human authors under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. . .the Bible is truth without any mixture of error. I don’t believe that the Bible has been translated correctly. I believe that the Bible has a lot of truths based on the parts that are translated correctly, but the Bible has been changed by political winds throughout the centuries.

I don’t find a competitor for MyChurch.. I clicked on the site’s Salt Lake City, Utah, membership list. Not surprisingly, there were no LDS churches as members. I knew that before I even clicked on Utah. I then clicked on an Episcopal church in Salt Lake. There are 4 people on the MyChurch membership. Hmmm. Not an enormous number, eh?

In summary, There is on-going discussion about the importance of SNSs, relating to how people present and hide aspects of themselves and connect with others. The church I belong to discourages the use of SNSs for several reasons – foremost is that (in my opinion) if one has time to spend hours on the Internet on SNSs, then one could spend those same hours more profitably reading, pondering meditating, and praying over the scriptures. It is a point that I agree with. (Ironically, there was a talk given in Sacrament meeting on June 28, 2009, about SNSs). . Having said that, in today’s Arizona Republic (June 28, 2009), there is a short blurb on A13 that “. . .BYU has lifted its almost three-year policy of blocking access to You-Tube [sic]. Administrators lifted the ban on Friday, citing an increasing amount of educational material on the site. . . BYU blocked the site in 2006 because administrators felt there was too much content that could violate school standards.” As I have said before, our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson has a Facebook page, I am told. I have never visited it.


I, myself, could probably become addicted to SNSs, because the study of people fascinates me. I, however, have far too much ranch work to do to even complete my assignments for EDU 255 in a timely manner, let alone spend hours online SNS’ing.