Why not call them personal network sites? (Via GoogleReader)
We might believe we are all using the same websites, but we are all looking at different screens. It's easy to forget that others are engaging with the Internet in a very individualized manner, so although we think we're seeing the same things (at least with our own outputs) it is difficult to see why others are viewing that content in very different terms. How can you examine this phenomenon accurately without a)patronising the user, b)missing the point, c)generalising the situation based on your own experiences.
I’ve often wondered why scholars studying Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc., call these platforms ’social network sites’ instead of personal network sites. After all, these are platforms built around individuals and their personal (or egocentric) networks rather than around ‘whole’ (or sociocentric) networks such as clans, universities, localities or firms. In social network analysis this distinction between personal and whole networks is crucial (see Knox et al 2006), yet it gets conflated in the Internet literature. For instance, Facebook allows for the creation of ‘networks’ (as in whole networks) and ‘groups’ but these are not as central to the site as its immense tangle of 300 million personal networks. It is is the ‘logic’ of personal networks that drives Facebook, not the logic of whole networks (Diagram by Peter Timusk).
Reference
Knox, H., Savage, M. & Harvey, P. (2006). Social networks and the study of relations: networks as method, metaphor and form. Economy & Society, 35(1)
