A Taxonomy of Socialization on the Internet June 13, 2011
There’s networking, and then there’s socialization. Networking is establishing the link, knowing how to find and talk to the person if the need arises. Socialization is communication for the sake of communication; it strengthens networks and keeps people in touch. In many ways, it is the utility a social networking site provides. Trouble is, there are so many different ways to communicate on the Internet these days. In this blog post, I try to explain the essential differences of socialization over the Internet. I believe what is called one-to-many socialization is the fundamental characteristic of the newest social patterns (facilitated by Facebook and Twitter), and describe some of the challenges in designing methods for consuming and aggregating this information.