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Great discussion, I did not realize or take into account that other
cities would be more heavily favoured towards other social networking
tools. However, it does make you wonder as to why other cities would
favour a specific social networking tool. True, that if most of your
friends are on one type of social networking platform, then you would
also start to join that. But the younger generation likes to try new
things, therefore if they were to find something better, they would go
to a different platform and then tell others to move to that platform.
 So, even though demographics and friends do play a significant role
in deciding which social networking platform to use, I think also
another factor to take into account is the usability of the social
networking platform and how easy it is to use and actually "social
network" compared to other sites.

To tell you the truth, I was never really a Facebook user, I really
didn't like the interface. Then, when all my other friends started
using Facebook, I decided to give it a try and found that it has
significantly improved. I used to start with Friendster, but I rarely
even use Friendster any more. I use LinkedIn but I don't really use
Ryze because it doesn't really suit me. And forget MySpace, it's so
cluttered and the user interface is terrible and well I really don't
see why people like to use MySpace.

Alvin


On 4/25/07, Bernie Hogan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****
>
> Hehe. Joshua, certainly, I was not trying to put words in your mouth.
>
> What I concur with is your statement that the largest facebook network
> does not necessarily mean the most social software users (as others
> might be using other networking sites - or other networking sites
> might have larger populations elsewhere).
>
> Thereafter, I was taking what you said in a different direction: From
> my limited experience across the board - teens to those in their
> thirties in Toronto - facebook is pretty much what people are using
> here. Would the sum of all users of all other software sites be larger
> than the sum of all facebook users? Maybe, but Facebook has received
> the sort of cultural hegemony that makes it the dominant and default.
>
> In fact more times than I can count, a conversation about my work
> starts like this:
> "I study social networks and the Internet"
> "Oh, like Facebook"
> "Um...not quite".
>
> But again, I have to wonder if something can be said about the
> relationship between the type of site and the type of networking
> preferred in Toronto (or elsewhere), or if its just a matter of
> sensitivity to initial conditions coupled with a lot of retroactive
> theorizing.
>
> Truthinessly,
> BERNiE
>
> On 4/25/07, Joshua O'Madadhain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > On 4/24/07, Bernie Hogan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****
> > >
> > > I have to concur with Joshua on that one. It is more a matter of saying
> > > - to know social networking in Toronto is to be plugged in to the facebook
> > > network, not that Toronto is particularly significant in terms of social
> > > networking.
> >
> > Not to drive my point into the ground...but that's not exactly what I said.
> >
> > Facebook is demonstrably big in Toronto. (Assuming that there aren't
> > a lot of dead profiles, etc.) But this does not mean that all (or
> > even most) people who do social networking in Toronto use Facebook.
> >
> > > Now, that notwithstanding, I'm happy that my city went with the classy
> > > Facebook over the more tastelessly noisy MySpace.
> >
> > This may not necessarily be the case, either.
> >
> > If I remember correctly, I believe that danah boyd and others have
> > observed that the social networking tools that you use is at least
> > partially demographically driven (e.g., I think that MySpace tends to
> > get more of the younger crowd just now).
> >
> > Casuistically,
> >
> > Joshua
> >
> > --
> > joshua.omadadhain@gmail.com...................www.ics.uci.edu/~jmadden
> > Joshua O'Madadhain: Information Scientist, Musician, Philosopher-At-Tall
> > It's that moment of dawning comprehension that I live for. -- Bill Watterson
> > My opinions are too rational and insightful to be those of any organization.
> >
>
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