Social Networks, User Communities, Who Knows?

I often get asked what the difference is between social networks and user communities. My answer tends to be of the "blah, blah, blah" variety - longwinded and probably more ambiguous than it should be.

So I was reading, I'm ashamed to say, Conde Nast Portfolio, the travel mag king's purported business pub (purported is the right word here) and there was this article about Emmy winning writers Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick who are launching an online MySpace TVshow they are calling "Quarterlife" based on their non-starter network attempt, 1/4 Life (no joke). I'll bet you can figure out what it's about, given the state of genres and cliches on network TV today.

What makes this sort of an interesting experiment is that they are trying to create a social network (or is it user community?) around the show on MySpace to generate buzz and creative input and output from the members of the (fill in a. network b. community).

But that's not what caught my eye. In the article, they quoted VC (that's venture capital, not Viet Cong, people) maven Paul Kedrosky (owner of the Infectious Greed blog) on his definition of social network:

"The great myth about social networks is that they're communities. Everybody on (social networks) has nothing in common other than that they are on them."

Which implies, of course, that user community members typically have something in common with each other - a particular profession, special interest, hobby or whatever.

So now I'm thinking -what are the best definitions of a social network and a user community? Is what Kedrosky saying right? If so, what about the social networks associated with say, Yelp, which have an interest in a geographic area or on Facebook which are tied through friendships? On Facebook if you join a group, are you a member of a community within a social network? Are you even distinguishing?

I would love to continue this discussion. There are a few ways to do it. Go to the comment section here and tell me your favorite definitions of each or take a crack at them yourselves. If not the comment sections, include a section on the CRM 2.0 wiki about making this a definition. Or go to MyCRMCareer.com and form a community or a network to discuss this. That would be the most ironic thing to do. Wouldn't it? :-)

Technorati : social networks, user communities

Comments

[Filiberto Selvas]

I tend to keep it simple in my definitions, to the exasperation of some….
For me communities are about people, with common interests/circumstances and that somehow congregate/interact/connect with each other. For Social Networks I do the same (keep it simple) they are the relationships/ties among individuals; these ties can be of friendship, “kinship”, etc.

Social Network SERVICES facilitate finding, establishing a connection with and interacting with individuals with whom I have a “kinship” and/or may already have a friendship with.

Some online community services offer social network services, some simply offer the opportunity for congregation and interaction. Some social network services offer purely the service of capturing and managing the “ties” (think LinkedIn a year ago), others offer as well the opportunity of congregation/interaction (i.e. Facebook groups. Quite related, but not the same.

Filiberto Selvas
http://selvascano.spaces.live.com/

[Chris Bucholtz]

From my practical experience, my social networks tend to sit and wait until someone needs something (usually, business-related). The communities I belong to are much more active and I get stuff "pushed" to me even outside the confines of the community setting by other people active in that community who know what I'm interested in. The other thing that sets communities apart is the ongoing dialogue; my social networks feel more like directories or, at best, yearbooks, while my communities are more like extremely loud cocktail parties (minus the beverages, of course).

Of course, that distinction is entirely within the scope of my own experience. I was going to qualify the community experience by saying it may be unique because everyone in the community was a nerd, but I realized that just about everyone in my social networks could also be described as a nerd, so the two cancel each other out.