"Social Network" you said, and it was wrong

Having to read masses of texts written on the subject of Online Communities I had to face the sad fact that we are all hopelessly confused by the overwhelming amount of information coming from all sides and terminological mess arising from our inability to grasp the meaning of the emerging phenomena doesn’t help a bit in our attempts to catch up with events.

As it always happens in moments like this buzz words tend to spring up from every corner of the field quite naturally reflecting the need to name something that only just came to exist. Being rather natural product of the course of events buzz words are just that, buzz words, that came into circulation spontaneously out of scarcity but not as a result of regular analytic attempts. Clear and transparent terms reflecting at least to a some degree the meaning of phenomena are clear signs of the maturity of the field and can provide an invaluable help in our attempts to rationalise the stream of events.

Social Network - perhaps the most abused term in the current thinking of the subject as in free circulation it is being applied to such a wide range of things that its meaning gets almost entirely diluted, hence it seems to be particularly important to return to its strict definition. Read more

Source: LZZR.com