In our ALA Boot Camp, we have been discussing issues of online networks vs. online communities:

In my work with technology-enabled learning, I have come to believe that it is not possible to build a “learning community.” When I write and speak about technology-enabled learning, I use the term “learning network” rather than “learning community.” I think this distinction is important because using the language of community creates expectations and desires that cannot be met by online networks.

I am reading and writing about Yochai Benkler's new book, “The Wealth of Networks.” In the introduction Benkler describes the effects of working in what he calls a networked information economy: “The networked information economy improves the practical capacities of individuals along three dimensions: (1) it improves their capacity to do more for and by themselves; (2) it enhances their capacity to do more in loose commonality with others, without being constrained to organization their relationships through a price system or in traditional hierarchical models of social and economic organization; and (3) it improves the capacity of individuals to do more in formal organizations that operate outside the market sphere.” Note that there is no mention of community in this description. Benkler talks about loose commonality with others and improved autonomy and capacity of individuals.

This morning I read a great article on Facebook in this week's New Yorker; In profiling Facebook founder (Mark Zuckerberg) the article gets at some of the key characteristics of social networks and online communities:

(Aixa's facebook page)

Here is how the initial facebook design is described:

“'Anybody with a Harvard e-mail address could join and create a profile, which consisted of a photograph and some personal information, such as the user's major; club memberships; taste in films, books, and music; and favorite quotes. There was a search box to help users call up other profiles, and a “poking button”, which they could use to let other people know that their profiles had been viewed; Users could also link to their friends' profiles.”

The article goes on to explain the appeal of facebook:

“By luck or design, Zuckerberg had tapped into a powerful yearning: the desire of hundreds of ambitious and impressionable young peopleto establish themselves and make friends in an unfamiliar environment.”

And:

“On most social-networking sites, a search box allows users to call up profiles of people anywhere on the site, a search box allows users to call up profiles of people anywhere on the site. Zuckerberg decided that Facebook members would be allowed to view only the profiles of other students at their own colleges, with one exception. If they obtained the permission of other students at another school, they could add that person to their list of friends. In retrospect, this decision was critical to Facebook's success, because it preserved the site's intimacy.”

And:

Zuckerberg says, 'one way to look at the goal of the site is to increase peoople's understanding of the world around them, to increase their information supply….They way you do that best is by having people share as much information as they are comfortable with. The way you make people comfortable is by giving them control over exactly who can see what'…..By altering the settings on their profiles, they can choose to make them visible solely to their friends, to other undergraduates, or to everybody at the university….'The problem Facebook is solving is this one paradox,' Zuckerberg said. 'People want access to all of the information around them, but they also want complete control over their own information. Those two things are at odds with each other. Technologically, we could put all the information out there for everyone, but people wouldn't want that because they want to control their information.'”

Yochai Benkler also addresses some of these issues in his chapter on Social Ties in “The Wealth of Networks:”

We are beginning to see the emergence of greater scope for limited-purpose, loose relationships. These may not fit the ideal model of “virtual communities.” They certainly do not fit a deep conception of “community” as a person's primary source of emotional context and support. They are nonetheless effective and meaningful to their participants. It appears that, as the digitally networked environment begins to displace mass media and telephones, its salient communications characteristics provide new dimensions to thicken existing social relations, while also providing new capabilities for looser and more fluid, but still meaningful social networks.” The Wealth of Networks, (page 357).

While people first feared that the Internet would supplant human connections, Benkler describes more complex vision of our emerging social ties:

“Human beings, whether connected to the Internet or not, continue to communicate preferentially with people who are geographically proximate than with those who are distant. Nevertheless, people who are connected to the Internet communicate more with people who are geographically distant without decreasing the number of local connections. With the total number of connections continues to be greatest with proximate family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors, the Internet's greatest effect is in improving the ability of individuals to add to these proximate relationships with people who are geographically distant.” (page 364)

And the kinds of relationships that are forged over the Internet seem to have a new kind of character: “These relationships are more limited in nature than ties to friends and family. They are detached from spatial constraints, and even time synchronicity; they are usually interest or practice based, and therefore play a more limited role in people's lives than the more demanding and encompassing relationships with family or intimate friends. Each discrete connection cluster of connections that forms a social network, or a network of social relations, plays some role, but not a definitive one, in each participant's life. (page 365)

As we begin to import social networking systems into enterprises, I believe the characteristics that have emerged in Facebook and described by Benkler are absolutely critical to how these systems are designed.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Main Page. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.