Today's Web has become fertile soil for personal publishing. Not only is it easy to get your voice out...
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posted by Jay on December 20th, 2006
in on people, social design, social network sites
First Monday has published an excellent paper, Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites, by danah boyd, about sites like MySpace where the information you display about yourself includes a list of who your “friends” are.
From the paper’s abstract:
“Are you my friend? Yes or no?” This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites. Participants must select who on the system they deem to be ‘Friends.’ Their choice is publicly displayed for all to see and becomes the backbone for networked participation. . .
I always find danah’s writings on the social network sites very illuminating, and this paper helped me connect the dots between many of the issues she’s been writing about over the past couple years.
Actually, I think it’s because of something danah wrote several years ago that I’ve been a bit more cautious about whether I refer to people I know online as “friends” or “colleagues” or “acquaintances” or “online friends”—I haven’t quite figured out consistent terms to convey (e.g., to my family) the different nuances of how I hang out with people offline / online. In conversation, I try to reserve the word “friend” for people whom I do (or, plan to do) fun things with in person.
So, by that definition, for example, I’d probably call danah a friend (playing werewolf is fun!). But, I’ve only hung out with danah in the context of professional conferences, so maybe “colleague” would better convey the connection?
Anyway, when, on social network sites, you display who your “friends” are, there’s an interesting overlap, an interesting conflict and an interesting divergence from who your friends are offline. And, danah’s paper really illuminates the dynamics of these overlaps / conflicts / divergences.
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a similiar situation is a blogger’s blog roll. although this relationship doesn’t define *how much* you like the person or her blog, listing and linking to the blog creates a relationship. what happens when you no longer read her blog? if you delete the blog from your roll, are you effectively breaking up? are you telling your readers that you no longer find her blog credible? what kind of signal are you sending?
a more compelling question: why list blogs you read in the first place?
“a more compelling question: why list blogs you read in the first place?”
Well, why not? The medium of the web is made of links, and being active on the web, more than anything, means creating new links. Why not link to sites you read?
But, I think the point you are getting at, which is very interesting, is not so much about what you link to, but what you leave out—what you choose to exclude. Given that a list, like a blog roll, ends up representing inclusion and implying exclusion, why not express more about your process of inclusion / exclusion?
On one level, what’s similar between blog rolls and social network site friends lists is that they both tend to be defined by software that represents nuanced relationships in terms of a simple, flat, lists.
But, even when the software itself allows for more free expression, many people still choose to conform to the conventions of older / popular blog software.
On my old tech blog, my blogroll appears under the description: “sites I like to read when I start from here.” That’s an attempt to describe the process of inclusion / exclusion I used in creating that list. (I know, it’s not much of a process!)
In any case, if you are using a web page to express something about your relationships with other people, it’s good to think about ways to be descriptive and expressive of your intentions. Either that, or be expressive of your intentions offline—that can work too!