Back to Basics: What is Social Networking?
I understand that this is a question that has been very well answered a million times before and I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, why not just check Wikipedia for the definition (which is not necessarily a bad idea).
But for those of you who would like to watch a succinct, yet fun way of looking at the very definition of social networking here’s a simple presentation created by Common Craft that has been doing the rounds of the blogosphere.
What’s also fascinating is how the video draws the distinction in simple terms, between the two prominent reasons behind why we network – social and professional.
- Length: 1:48
- Transcript
- Translated Versions (subtitles may take a while to appear)
You can share this video using embed code from one of these hosts:
You Tube | MetaCafe | Daily Motion | DotSub | Blip.tv
The above video has been created by Lee LeFever and his team at Common Craft, who have also worked on other similar gems, helping users understand the complex world of RSS, Wikis, etc… in plain english. Care for more:
* RSS in Plain English (3:43)
* Social Bookmarking in Plain English (3:25)
* Wikis in Plain English (3:52)
trackback
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Lee LeFever (Common Craft) October 10th, 2007
Thanks a bunch for posting the video Mario. When we were making it, I remember thinking about LinkedIn and what you might think of the points we were making. Our was to help people understand why they should care about social networking. I hope it does that. :)
Mauro Mello October 10th, 2007
Mario,
Common Craft’s video made me think again why even a sophisticated social networking platform, like LinkedIn fails to provide us, users, with some very basics metrics of our social networks:
> How open/close is my network, compared to the average user’s
> How many cliques are there in my network, and what are they. How these compare to the average user’s network.
> What’s the rank of my contacts, in terms of: reach providing, redundancy, etc. What are the main “hubs” of my network
Lots of these metrics are presented and extensively discussed at S.Wasserman (http://www.amazon.com/Social-Network-Analysis-Applications-Structural/dp/0521382696/ref=sr_1_4/104-7887508-8119133?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192070062&sr=1-4 )
and some very introductory metrics and information can be found at W.Baker (http://www.amazon.com/Social-Network-Analysis-Applications-Structural/dp/0521382696/ref=sr_1_4/104-7887508-8119133?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192070062&sr=1-4)
Is it because calculating these metrics, for all users, would require too much processing power? Or is it just considered not interesting information for the users?
All the best!
trish October 11th, 2007
HELLO JUST WENT TO LINKED IN AND IT SAID LI IS UNAVAILABLE UNTIL SEPTEMBER 27. SINCE IT’S CURRENTLY OCTOBER 11, I’M CONFUSED. WHAT’S THE DEAL?