Howard takes a look at social networking services on Smart Mobs in a piece titled "Why some social network services work and others don't." In particular, he points to a post by Jyri Engestrom on object-centered sociality that has reminded me of some thought's I'd had after reading a similar post commenting on Jyri's post from Noah Brier.

The central tenet behind both authors is that social networking succeeds when it surrounds an object, such as a photo or URL, rather than when it is a tool specifically created for social networking - tools in the latter category tend to fail due to their lack of cohesion and therefore lack of networking.

These authors build on the definition of the social network as 'a map of the relationships between individuals.' Basically I'm defending an alternative approach to social networks here, which I call 'object centered sociality'

The term 'social networking' makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people. Think about the object as the reason why people affiliate with each specific other and not just anyone.

The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They're not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object. That's why many sociologists... prefer to talk about 'socio-material networks', or just 'activities' or 'practices' (as I do) instead of social networks.

We can use the object-centered sociality theory to identify new objects that are potentially suitable for social networking services. Take the notion of place, for example. Annotating places is a new practice for which there is clearly a need, but for which there is no successful service at the moment because the technology for capturing one's location is not quite yet cheap enough, reliable enough, and easy enough to use.- Jyri Engestrom

I will leave the object-centered sociality idea for another post, but comment now simply on the idea of socio-material networks, which I think is a great way to recentre thought about what binds social networks together. I had never fully considered why I tended to use some "social network" tools more than others, for example using Flickr while I never quite got in to LinkedIn, but I fully realize now that it was because I was bound to others by a shared interest or object. Great realization, and great insight that can be used in the development of new tools.

To further the discussion, Noah notes how we tend to classify our personal social networks on some connection - how we know the person. However, when we take social networking online, we lose this vital piece of information and categorization. Social networking is, thus, about the "thing" that binds people together, and not the binding itself. It's the context that is important.

Social networking works best when it's not the primary objective of a website. In other words, sites like Flickr and blogs generally tend to be a more accurate picture of your social network than something like Friendster - Noah Brier

As Noah notes, most social networking sites will not work because they lack the context needed. Friendster is generic - it is a place to lodge all your friends, but is not necessarily an optimal way for you to interact since it lacks context. However, you can consider sites like College Club to succeed because they have that context of "school" that binds people together and makes their communication there meaningful (read contextualized).