Danah Boyd: The History and Future of Social Networking

Published
by
Dawn
on October 29, 2006
in Danah Boyd, MySpace, foo, social networking, social software and werewolf
.

Financial Times calls Danah Boyd “The high priestess of internet friendship”, and the title is well earned. I attended a few web 2.0 sessions with Danah (and a few evenings of Werewolf), and this women “gets” social networking better than anyone else I know.

If you want to better understand the evolution of social networking and get a sense for where it is headed, this article based on a Financial Times interview with Danah is a great place to start.

2 Responses to “Danah Boyd: The History and Future of Social Networking”

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  1. 1 gmoney
    October 31, 2006 at 5:09 am

    I read your piece in the FT with great delight and interest. We are launching an exciting site in late November-early December. What strikes me as odd, is the narrow spectrum of thinking about the concept of social networking. When I ask people why a particular site, they respond typically with “to connect with friend” or “keep in touch with people I know”. This is bound to get very old, regardless if it’s Facebook, Myspace, Friendster or whatever.

    I asked my wife if she believes people want to have a “real” conversation and she said, “honey most people–especially young people do not.” I completely disagree with my wife and the bartender who echoes her same point. It is time to evolve truly to a more legitimate social networking experience. This is why large media are having such a difficult time with these sites, because at the end of the day, people don’t seem to be expanding their horizons much.

    Please tell me that my wife and the bartender are wrong. Because if they right in their perspectives, it says very little about how we have evolved as people. lhowell@schetikos.com

  2. 2 Graham
    May 6, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    It is always refreshing to read into danah’s research. I just finished my thesis about identity construction in Facebook…to which I am very glad to be finished with. It’s funny because if you are writing a research paper on social networking sites, you are bound to cite danah, as well as make sure to leave her name all lowercase :P

    As for the future of social networking sites, Facebook in particular, I honestly do not think it can sustain its large membership within the next five years or so. If Facebook doesn’t continue to expand and create new and inviting applications, how can they keep the 70+million of people happy? I think the new generation of social networking sites are branching off into smaller sub-groups which are geared for a specific demographic. Like an SNS for fishermen, one for expats, one for tennis players, etc. I wonder if they will decrease Facebook’s capital in the long run. Or perhaps Facebook could expand into that market. Whatya think?

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