Community or social network?
From the translator. This text is the introductory text to the mini series from 4 publications devoted to social networks and communities, their similarities and differences, as well as their interrelations with each other.
I want to share with you my recent research on the relationship between social networks and communities.
Since 2008, social media has become a widely used and fashionable concept in the corporate world. The question is what is social media? Some people seem to identify this concept with sites called social networks, like Facebook. Others think that social media is blogs, microblogging (like Twitter), Flickr, Youtube, or any other similar web-based services based on the collective exchange of information between users. They point to different types of social media, starting with social interaction services (like Wikipedia, Delicious or Digg), and ending with online communities (like the communities we create around brands or like Yahoo! Answer).
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All these definitions are to some extent true if we classify social media according to their functional characteristics. On the other hand, writer and blogger Brian Solis proposed a different social media classification based on how people communicate. He called his classification " conversation prism " ( conversation prism ). However, if we want to understand social media in terms of building relationships between people within the framework of social anthropology , we will find that there are only two main types of social media:
Human social networks and communities, in fact, have existed for many millennia before their online counterparts appeared. Both those, and others, have proven to be reliable and stable social structures that have passed all the tests of time. They appeared again and again, despite the collapse or flourishing of civilizations. People by their nature are definitely to this type of interaction.
In this text, which should serve as the beginning of a miniseries of publications, I want to offer you a certain perspective, from which you can see some basic features that distinguish these two types of social media from each other. And a little later I will show you that we can understand about these two types by studying social anthropology.
Figure 1 . Social network structure. The network expands to infinity and covers the earth. The center darkest point is I. The circles in the frame denote the people I know. Lines denote established connections between people.
Each of us has our own social network (be it online or offline). Everyone has friends, family, as well as people with whom we are familiar. The social networking site simply makes our social network visible to other people, those that are not included in our direct network.
So, the simplest and most important feature that distinguishes a social network from a community is how people stick together in that and in another case. In a social network, people stick together due to a predetermined relationship: they are already relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues, business partners, etc. On a social networking site, such connections are lined up one at a time (i.e., you connect directly to another user). The main reason why people join such a site is to maintain old relationships and establish new ones by expanding their network. Knowing this, it should be obvious why Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn are social networks, not communities.
The human social networks have one interesting feature - they are all absolutely unique. Indeed, it is very difficult to create a fake profile on Facebook or LinkedIn, because your friends (or those with whom you have connected) immediately collectively recognize you. Moreover, as a rule, people do not lay out their lives on the shelves (if you are not just a secret agent of the CIA or some other secret state organization), so usually they have only one social network. It can be argued that even the CIA agents have only one social network - simply their network consists of two or more segments that have little intersection with each other.
Figure 2 . Community structure Communities can be nested and intersecting. Each person is usually part of many communities at the same time. The central darkest point is I. I simultaneously participate in the green community and in the yellow (more precisely, in the subcommunity of the yellow community). I am familiar with one person who is simultaneously in three communities.
Unlike social networks, communities (both online and offline) are of greater interest from the point of view of social anthropology, because they often consist of people from very different backgrounds, between whom, it seems, there can be no relationship at all. And yet, as we know from history, communities are very reliable social structures. So what is it that keeps people together in communities?
People stick together in a community because of common interest. Such an interest can be a hobby, or something that community members have a passion for, a common goal, a common project, or simply preferences for the same particular lifestyle, place of residence, or profession. Undoubtedly, people join the community because they are concerned about the same common interest that holds the community together. Someone participates in the community because they feel a desire to contribute to the common cause, others are participating because they can benefit by being part of the community.
Due to the many facets of modern life, each person often consists of many different communities. Moreover, communities can intersect or be nested. For example, a local community, say, a city community, may contain subcommunities located in different parts of the city and linking people to each other with a finer geo-referencing. And at the same time, the same city may contain different ethnic communities linking people by their common ethnicity.
Now you see why Yelp, Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, the blogosphere, etc. are communities? Yelp is originally a community of food lovers, while members of the Wikipedia community have a passion for the common cause of creating a global Internet encyclopedia. YouTube and Flickr are communities embedded in larger video and photo lovers, respectively, and these people may belong to other subcommunities within YouTube and Flickr. These subcommunities may simply be your friends and relatives, or they may be people interested in HDR photography (with 61 thousand participants) or slow-motion videos.
Social networks:
So, we got acquainted with the basic differences between social networks and communities in terms of connections between people. Next time we will be able to discuss more interesting issues, such as the dynamics of the formation of relationships and what this means for business.
- Community or social network?
- How do people make connections
- From weak ties to strong
- Maintain strong ties
I want to share with you my recent research on the relationship between social networks and communities.
Since 2008, social media has become a widely used and fashionable concept in the corporate world. The question is what is social media? Some people seem to identify this concept with sites called social networks, like Facebook. Others think that social media is blogs, microblogging (like Twitter), Flickr, Youtube, or any other similar web-based services based on the collective exchange of information between users. They point to different types of social media, starting with social interaction services (like Wikipedia, Delicious or Digg), and ending with online communities (like the communities we create around brands or like Yahoo! Answer).
')
All these definitions are to some extent true if we classify social media according to their functional characteristics. On the other hand, writer and blogger Brian Solis proposed a different social media classification based on how people communicate. He called his classification " conversation prism " ( conversation prism ). However, if we want to understand social media in terms of building relationships between people within the framework of social anthropology , we will find that there are only two main types of social media:
- Social networks
- Online communities
Human social networks and communities, in fact, have existed for many millennia before their online counterparts appeared. Both those, and others, have proven to be reliable and stable social structures that have passed all the tests of time. They appeared again and again, despite the collapse or flourishing of civilizations. People by their nature are definitely to this type of interaction.
In this text, which should serve as the beginning of a miniseries of publications, I want to offer you a certain perspective, from which you can see some basic features that distinguish these two types of social media from each other. And a little later I will show you that we can understand about these two types by studying social anthropology.
Social networks
Figure 1 . Social network structure. The network expands to infinity and covers the earth. The center darkest point is I. The circles in the frame denote the people I know. Lines denote established connections between people.
Each of us has our own social network (be it online or offline). Everyone has friends, family, as well as people with whom we are familiar. The social networking site simply makes our social network visible to other people, those that are not included in our direct network.
So, the simplest and most important feature that distinguishes a social network from a community is how people stick together in that and in another case. In a social network, people stick together due to a predetermined relationship: they are already relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues, business partners, etc. On a social networking site, such connections are lined up one at a time (i.e., you connect directly to another user). The main reason why people join such a site is to maintain old relationships and establish new ones by expanding their network. Knowing this, it should be obvious why Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn are social networks, not communities.
The human social networks have one interesting feature - they are all absolutely unique. Indeed, it is very difficult to create a fake profile on Facebook or LinkedIn, because your friends (or those with whom you have connected) immediately collectively recognize you. Moreover, as a rule, people do not lay out their lives on the shelves (if you are not just a secret agent of the CIA or some other secret state organization), so usually they have only one social network. It can be argued that even the CIA agents have only one social network - simply their network consists of two or more segments that have little intersection with each other.
Communities
Figure 2 . Community structure Communities can be nested and intersecting. Each person is usually part of many communities at the same time. The central darkest point is I. I simultaneously participate in the green community and in the yellow (more precisely, in the subcommunity of the yellow community). I am familiar with one person who is simultaneously in three communities.
Unlike social networks, communities (both online and offline) are of greater interest from the point of view of social anthropology, because they often consist of people from very different backgrounds, between whom, it seems, there can be no relationship at all. And yet, as we know from history, communities are very reliable social structures. So what is it that keeps people together in communities?
People stick together in a community because of common interest. Such an interest can be a hobby, or something that community members have a passion for, a common goal, a common project, or simply preferences for the same particular lifestyle, place of residence, or profession. Undoubtedly, people join the community because they are concerned about the same common interest that holds the community together. Someone participates in the community because they feel a desire to contribute to the common cause, others are participating because they can benefit by being part of the community.
Due to the many facets of modern life, each person often consists of many different communities. Moreover, communities can intersect or be nested. For example, a local community, say, a city community, may contain subcommunities located in different parts of the city and linking people to each other with a finer geo-referencing. And at the same time, the same city may contain different ethnic communities linking people by their common ethnicity.
Now you see why Yelp, Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, the blogosphere, etc. are communities? Yelp is originally a community of food lovers, while members of the Wikipedia community have a passion for the common cause of creating a global Internet encyclopedia. YouTube and Flickr are communities embedded in larger video and photo lovers, respectively, and these people may belong to other subcommunities within YouTube and Flickr. These subcommunities may simply be your friends and relatives, or they may be people interested in HDR photography (with 61 thousand participants) or slow-motion videos.
Summarizing
Social networks:
- People stick together thanks to a pre-established relationship. And you know everyone, because he is connected to you directly.
- Each person has only one social network. However, a person may have several social graphs depending on which type of relationship we want to focus on. (See the basics of social network analysis ).
- Social networks have a network structure
- People hold together due to common interests and can form large groups. Although there may be pre-established interpersonal connections between people, this is not necessary. New members usually do not know the majority of people in the community.
- Each person can be part of many communities at the same time.
- Communities can intersect and be nested within each other.
So, we got acquainted with the basic differences between social networks and communities in terms of connections between people. Next time we will be able to discuss more interesting issues, such as the dynamics of the formation of relationships and what this means for business.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/137825/
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