danah has created a wiki documenting the history of online social network websites (YASNS, SNC, SNS, etc). Brilliant idea. She writes:
I have created a simple pbwiki at http://yasns.pbwiki.com/ (password yasns) where i’m starting to make a timeline. Can you please add what you know to it? Pretty please with a cherry on top? A lot of this information is scattered all over the web and in people’s heads and it’d be great to get it documented in a centralized source. (I know that there is some info on Wikipedia but it’s not complete; as appropriate, i will transfer information back in their format.) Note: i didn’t include citations because i often don’t have them but if you have them, they’d be very very welcome.
Yes! This is a perfect project to be solved collabroatively. So please surf over, bookmark it, share some knowledge.
Tags: social networks
I don’t know if this will help the cause, but I built up a spreadsheet a few months ago for a conference paper. It gives launch years for connector sites. All dates should have been verified using at least two sources, if I remember right..
Info for some sites may not be applicable for danah’s purposes. But there are a number of social network sites, which I take to to be a subset of connectors.
I tried to post to danah’s blog earlier this morning, but not posting for some reason. Maybe a technical snafu.
Folks should feel free to use this Excel however they see fit.
Here is the URL –
http://pauldiperna.typepad.com/Connector_Websites_Table.xls
Fred, hope all is good in Chapel Hill.
- Paul
Paul – please do add that to the Wiki! It will be very useful!