Social Networking
These services act in a number of different ways. Some simply allow a user to create a list of friends or acquaintances, while others allow people to access skills or contacts in a specific area of expertise.
What happens is that instead of just being able to see your list of friends, you’re able to see who is on the list of friends that your friends have. You’re also able to see what areas of expertise those people have but you aren’t allowed to contact them directly.
You need to ask the friend who knows that person to put you in touch.
It’s the old boys’ club replicated in the digital world, except now you don’t need to remember who works where and who does what because the system keeps track of all that.
While many people wouldn’t see themselves as part of a social network, online social networking sites expose how such networks fit together and make it a lot easier for people to access specific sets of skills.
A network such as MySpace is much more socially focused, aiming at connecting people on an informal level and providing a focus point for people who enjoy similar things. Those may be as simple as model train enthusiasts or more complex, such as rallying people to a social cause. But for people interested in both, such sites provide a central point to bring it all together.
Finweek
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