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It's funny, I would not really have counted HN or Reddit as social networks (much less SE or github) even though they clearly have a social aspect. What makes
by kace91 8y ago
It's funny, I would not really have counted HN or Reddit as social networks (much less SE or github) even though they clearly have a social aspect.
What makes a social network a social network?
I think in my mind a social network is a site where the information you can see is a feed either created or curated by a group of people you know. twitter and other asymmetrical networks fit in because you know famous people even if they don't know you. that would leave sites like reddit or HN in the outer edge of the definition, since you're seeing content curated by like minded strangers (spotify or pornhub would also qualify there), and sites like stackexchange out since the feed is either non existent or of low importance.
- cronix 8y ago> What makes a social network a social network? I'd boil it down to something that offers 2 way communication instead of read-only (I'm not including clicking on a link [GET request] to get to a different page as part of 2 way communication, although technically it is). If it has a commenting system, voting system, or any other way for a user to be able to change/alter the information that is displayed on the site/platform to other users, I'd call that a social network. News sites used to be more like news papers. You could only read the article. Then they just about all added Disqus/commenting systems, which turned them into more social networks. A typical weather type app is not a social network. It only shows the weather.