Breeding matters. At least that is what writers such as Austen and Bronte have spent so much of their literature qualifying. For livestock, good breeding represents the health of the stock. Translate this over to social networks and it becomes not a story of qualification of how many, but rather the quality of networks.
The pedigree networks hold their own and qualify those who are connected and in doing so act as a measure of the network value. A case of where being valued adds value and gains momentum.
Much debate about social networks has been by the press led scare-mongering of ‘time-wasting’ and devaluing of connections that has been a cultivation of a less than sophisticated means of communication, or disturbing ‘friend farming‘. Just take a look at Tom Hodgkinson’s article ‘With Friends Like Theses…’ in Monday’s The Guardian.
Moreover, the latest observers of New Social Media (NSM) have been quick to criticise the rise of the ‘cult of the amateur’, or as I like to re-phrase the ‘stupidity’ of the ‘many’, those individuals who seek to gain credibility by building up connections that are quantifiable, rather than qualifiable. However, in terms of social networking we must recognise that users are a diverse lot. Version 1.0 of the Web was previously the domain of the ‘super geek’, or the ‘educated elites’, before Facebook opened its doors to everyone, now in version 2.0 ‘anyone’ can be networked to everyone.
And so back to ‘breeding’. To cut to the chase there are two sets of agenda that take place when cultivating a social network.
- Scenario no. 1. an individual who wants to manage their own already established networks to stay well informed and in touch.
- Scenario no.2. for all those network junkies, for whom social networks become valued only by the quantity rather than the quality of connections.
Now this may be too simplistic a division, but in terms of groups of friends these provide some measure to begin to separate out the kinds of relationship stratifications that are taking place when creating networks. Think of the above scenarios as representative of two ends of a continuum and two types of networker. At one end we have the network junkie, and at the other, the network select.
Taken as a collective social networks begin to take on a form and life all of their own. For example, that first instance when someone who is ‘known’ is also ‘friends’ with someone else who is in the same network, but before were unconnected.
These are aggregations of connections upon connections and points of connect. Where you can connect to someone on Twitter, and someone else on Facebook and so on. Where these points of contact and connections converge they affect our judgements and value of ‘friends’ and friends of friends. So in one sense, digital social networks represent that, that the individual is already familiar, ie. networks as they already are aware of and have cultivated offline. On, SNSs these hold and expose what such networks could be, as links automatically show connections between ‘friends’, in a limitless capacity.
In this respect, one of the most striking aspects of these kinds of connections is that the connections are made for us, and that in the ‘real’ non-networked world such links could have been all to easy to miss. For many the key to good networking is through the right connection. LinkdIn is a key example of how a connection to one person holds value as the potential link to one individual can become a valuable, and valued introduction.
So where does this leave us? Taken as a one, the individual is solely responsible for their own networks. As a member of a network and series of links they come to represent the weight of the group and ‘power’ of association. Such associations need not be tied to numbers, but type of network that is being ‘bred’. And lets face it one connection to one Girly Geek is more valuable that connections to the many anonymous ‘friends’ on MySpace.
Image: www.fao.org
About Dr Mariann Hardey
I hold the position of Lecturer in Social Media Marketing at Durham Business School. I also spend too much time enjoying social technologies, media+ stuff. That'll make me a Geek then. And a gal.
