danah boyd on ... the real social network

apophenia: Would the real social network please stand up?
danah boyd distinguishes between three types or views of social networks determined by how they are conceptualized or investigated, and these are, she says, "often collapsed in public discourse":
--Sociological "personal" networks
--Behavioral social networks
and
--Publicly articulated social networks
The sociological, she points out, is the source of many of the terms we use to describe online social networks: friend, social capital, &c. And frequently we would probably like to think that online social networks are structures like this type of network, assuming for example, that a friend in this type of network is someone you could approach if you wanted to get some notes from a class you missed. But, in reality, online social networks are more complex, made up of people we work with or are in a class with, or would like to be associated with in some way.
So, it it important in researching social networks to try to focus on what you want to measure: behaviours, attitudes, self-conceptions, &c.

Facebook Says It Wants You to Be Less Private - But Why?

Facebook Says It Wants You to Be Less Private - But Why?:

"Facebook Director of Communications Brandee Barker told us this in response to our 'why' question:
Sharing is at the core of our product. Finding people you know, learning about people you don't know, searching for what people are saying about topics that interest you can generally only happen when people are open and choose to share. By recommending more open defaults, more people will be able to connect on the site.
Is that really true? Facebook is about learning about people you don't know and searching for what people are saying about topics that interest you? Far more often, we've heard the saying 'Facebook is about people you know, Twitter is about people you want to know and MySpace is about people you used to know.'

It is interesting that Facebook started off as a private space, controlled and limited, and that now it wants to become a more open space. Of course, it could be that Facebook wants to use this openness to sell users things, to convert the space into a market where interactions are less and less a the user's control. It is like the developments of urbanization, except in reverse. It may create some benefits as well as some irritations.