_____ is not a social network.

I got in a small debate on Twitter when I said I didn’t like LinkedIn, specifically because I thought marketing itself as a social network was disingenuous.

We could get into a deeper debate on that, and I did, repeatedly. I think LinkedIn has some social features, but it’s laser focus on finding jobs, headhunting, and finding clients removes the social aspect from it - it’s social networking the way speeddating is building a relationship.

However, this led me to a bigger point - we use the words ‘social network’ to describe everything.

There are the things that fit what I consider the ‘social network’ definition: myspace, friendster, facebook, orkut, ning sites, etc. I’d even argue that message boards are essentially social networks.

There are things that incorporate social networking elements, like Tumblr. I’m unsure if I really see the platform as a social network, but I can’t argue that it isn’t heavily community focused and oriented, both in behaviour and features.

And then we get to the service that I’d argue least resembles a social network: Twitter.

If Twitter is a social network, so are telephones.

Twitter is a communications platform. They’ve been making slow moves back toward what could be considered one cohesive network (mostly by alienating and discouraging developers) but I’m not sure why it’s a ‘social network’ just because people can use it to socialize. By that logic, instant messaging is a social network.

Taking it up a level, this is a conversation about how everything online gets bucketed together, simply because it is online. When I commented that I didn’t think LinkedIn was a social network under any usefully narrow definition, Jennifer Johnston suggested that I was essentially saying “a newspaper is only a newspaper if it looks like the Toronto Star”, which is a fair interpretation of the couple of statements I had made.

From my point of view, I was saying that not everything printed on paper is a novel. Sometimes it’s a resume, sometimes a grocery list, and sometimes a newspaper.

Just because it happens in a browser window, and just because there is a list of contacts, doesn’t make it a social network. And I think the tidal wave of ‘social media’ hype often overlooks the fact that it’s the same pieces in play as before: people, talking. There’s just a new system of behaviours that emerges when you introduce new means of connection, and new technologies.

As someone who spends a lot of time personally and professionally, on understanding the different systems of behaviour that develop in and around different online tools, platforms and communities, names matter.

Because lumping everything together insists on reductionist thinking about the sociology of emerging tech.