The thoughts of nine experts about our increasingly online lives

In June 2007, the world’s top three social networking sites—YouTube, MySpace and Facebook—attracted more than 350 million people to their Web sites, according to comScore. And each time they visited, users stayed connected for at least an hour and a half; at Facebook the average stay per visit was nearly four hours. With these types of usage statistics, it’s easy to see why social networking is in the news.

While the term social networking may be new, the concepts behind it—creating community, sharing content and collaborating with others—are not. In fact, they have been around for a long time, as early as the time of Plato in 400 B.C., when scholars and philosophers studied and analyzed the formation and interaction of groups of people. What is new is the digital medium, which makes connecting with other people faster, easier and more accessible to a wider population than it’s ever been before. The challenge is how to apply social networking in a digital age to enhance and extend the public service mission of libraries, museums and archives.

NextSpace asked nine experts to explore and comment on the trends and behaviors of users of the social Web. Following is their online conversation.

How do you define online social networking? Examples of how it’s working well and not so well?

Hemanshu Nigam Chief Security Officer MySpace

Nigam: Social networks are online communities that provide a place for people to connect with friends, meet new friends, plan their social lives, discover new music, trends or interests, engage with political candidates, promote charities and express themselves creatively. MySpace is a new communication mechanism for the Internet generation, much like e-mail, instant messaging or mobile devices. It is also one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment on the Internet or elsewhere.

In addition to developing content around user’s interests including music, books, comedy, and film, MySpace has taken an active role in mobilizing users to get involved in politics, philanthropy and community activities. For example, earlier this year, we launched the Impact Channel, a political community designed to empower politicians, nonprofits and civic organizations to connect with our users around the world. This channel will host the MySpace Presidential Town Hall, a series of hour long dialogues between Presidential candidates and the MySpace community.

MySpace is committed to making our community as safe as possible for all of our members. Safety and security are built into every feature we design and build. We are continually working to educate youth on online safety through various programs, and are actively pursuing new technologies and opportunities to increase user safety on the site. Recently, we partnered with the American Library Association (ALA) and the Illinois Library Association (ILA) to distribute one million free bookmarks containing tips on Internet safety at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference.

Paul Jones, Director of ibibio.org The public’s library and digital archive

Jones: Relying first on social networked groups to get at a definition, we find that Wikipedia defines social networks as: a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, trade, Web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology) or airline routes.  In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.

A friend from Europe twittered me that an online social network is an Interactive e-PLAYground community. This last elides the other work of social networks as seen in LinkedIn and Match and Classmates to name three.

Bourdieu writing in the ’80s saw that social networks were defined largely by who was left out, by their exclusiveness and by how they allocated social and knowledge capital to their members to provide them with an advantage over outsiders.

Lin, Burt and Granovetter all notice that closed social networks have certain advantages but the interactions between such networks—not closure or density—are more important to social capital growth and exchange.

Online social networks draw their strength by not just hosting one social network bound by a Dunbar number (150), but a highly porous set of interactions between “natural” social networks. Not just kids at a certain school or from a certain class but a broader mesh of such smaller networks with casual interactions building and supporting stronger interactions. Messages culminating in a meetup say.

Some sites allow social interactions but are not really supporting social networks explicitly (say newspaper site discussion boards), some are swamped by social networks that change the nature of the networks on that site (say Brazilians on Orkut or Burning Man attendees on Friendster).

Whatever the technology, it is the social that actually provides the networks and the interactions.

Fred Stutzman, Ph.D. student, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is researching social software, networks and identity.

Stutzman: For research purposes, we define social networking sites as those that explicitly enable transversable, persistent social connections in a public sphere. However, as the Web inevitably gets more social, the boundaries between “social networking” and everything else out there becomes less tangible.

Other people are the killer app on the Web, and designers realize this. As a result, I believe we’re going to see everything go social. In fact, I believe that sites where explicit social connections are the primary vector sort of represent version 1 off “social networking”—in the future there’s tremendous opportunity for social connections oriented around objects. Del.icio.us for example—people build social connections around something as simple as a hyperlink.

There are so many diverse communities and interests out there, I believe that there’s really limitless opportunity in the “social object” area—I think its an area that leverages “social networking” very well.

Edward Castronova, Associate Professor of Telecommunications, Indiana University and founder of The Synthetic Worlds Initiative, a research institute

Castronova: A network is a group of entities linked to one another, or any one entity that is linked to others through another entity, that is not directly. In a social network these entities are people. In an online social network, the links happen across the Internet. I define working well as: the links are strong, meaning the two entities linked together often use that link as part of their ordinary functioning. By this definition, a synthetic world like Guild is a good online social network. The players in the Guild indirect often with one another and these interactions are an important part to play experience. The career networking sites like LinkedIn are not working so well. There are too many nodes in the links are rarely used.

Pope/Bell: Social networking is another type of community. Communities of different types have existed for a long time and as technology and the times change, so do the tools for social networking. For instance before newspapers, computers, etc., social networking was meeting in the village commons.

Kitty Pope, Second Life Librarian and Executive Director, Alliance Library System, and her avatar

Social networking has always existed but with the 21st century there are a whole new group of technology tools that make it possible for communities to expand from local to global. Some of the tools are virtual worlds like Second Life, blogs, wikis, Ning, and many others. They are ways of forming communities for a specific purpose, interest or task or to share information in a community.

There are so many social networking tools out there, and no one library can utilize them all well. Many are new, some come and go. Things are changing so quickly that libraries do not know what to invest money and time in. IT adds interactive communication but budgets are strapped, staffing is tight, and it is difficult for many libraries to take on even one more thing. What has worked well is that when a library selects a social network and utilizes it, it results in better service and communication with their users. IT gives users new ways to be involved and participate in the library.

Caruth/Bernstein: The following from dictionary.com is not bad: Any Web site designed to allow multiple users to publish content themselves. The information may be on any subject and may be for consumption by (potential) friends, mates, employers, employees, etc. The sites typically allow users to create a “profile” describing themselves and to exchange public or private messages and list other users or groups they are connected to in some way. There may be editorial content or the site may be entirely user-driven. Content may include text, images, video or any other media. Social networks on the web are a natural extension of mailing lists and bulletin boards. They are related to wikis but typically do not allow users to modify content once it has been submitted, though usually you can publish comments on others’ submissions. Different sites have different emphasis.

Stuart L. Weibel, Ph.D., Consulting Research Scientist, OCLC

Weibel: Social networking isn’t new; it is what we do as social beings.  The new part, of course, is the technology that brings us in closer conscious proximity, even when at great physical distance.  A good social networking application will:

Reduce friction in communication.  Again, not a new thing, but part of a natural progression that speeds the sharing of ideas, moods, and trends.

Promote shared context: Cues about what my friends, family, and colleagues are doing connects me with them, and helps fix my own thoughts, ideas, activities, and ambience in a common awareness.

Guided serendipity—show me activity in other parts of my network that can stimulate my own thinking, reading. planning, actions.

Surface emergent relationships: this is perhaps genuinely new. Linking aggregates a broad spectrum of activities of others and makes evident my own behaviors in a larger context. People who own/read/like one thing may also own/read/like another.

What are the impacts, overall, do you think on industry, education and cultural institutions?

Nigam: The Internet is an integral part of people’s lives today, and it offers unprecedented opportunities for knowledge and entertainment. As the world’s largest social networking community, MySpace is not only a fun place to hang out with friends, but also an environment for teens to build important peer relationships. MySpace and social networking sites have become key communication tools for teens and adults alike, and they’re not going away.

The line between the online and offline world is fading as social networking sites, e-mail and instant messenger become the new communication tools. MySpace believes that the best way to make sure people are using the site safely is to have active and ongoing discussions with them.

Jones: As with the advent of writing, telegraph, TV and radio, we are seeing reconfigurations of power and of structures for social capital exchange. That is, the Bourdieuian closure are being restuctured if not smashed.  There is no deterministic answer to this question, but we can make some guesses. Although I remind myself how much we cannot see while in the midst of the process, (see Forecasting the Telephone by Pool for a cold awaking as to how wrong and how right we can be)—am I hedging enough? I notice that others have perhaps wisely avoided this question—I will say that we are surely seeing a restructuring in knowledge access and in cultural production and in preservation that allows for widely distributed holdings of materials and centrally facilitated access. Additionally there will be strong reactions, including moral panic, to this change. As the tensions resolve, we may have a new period of enlightenment or a new dark ages. We can count on change, reorder and reconfigurations of institutions and of the powers that they represent.

Stutzman: On one hand, I think these technologies can have tremendous impact, particularly in the breaking down of communication barriers created by cost or distance. At the same time, I wonder if the changes aren’t all that tremendous after all, but rather a natural inclination of social beings to continue to express and communicate with each other in increasingly robust/present/active modes.

However, as natural as these changes may be, we will still need to evolve our institutions toward them, and be reflexive to these changes. I believe the major change will be that individuals will expect the ability to communicate at any time, in any state. Institutions must be there for us when we need them—there are no “closed hours” in an online space.

Edward Castronova Avatar

Furthermore, with the multiple forms and states through which we can communicate, we’re going to find ourselves increasingly aware of each other at times we may not expect. This ubiquitous presence will generate a different understanding of our social interaction. We’re going to immerse ourselves in others—that’s the lasting change—and we’re going to do it in many ways. Virtual sociality is/will be quite real, and that will be an interesting lasting impact.

Castronova: On industry, the impact of online social networks is that they cost much less sustain than offline physical networks do. This means that a networked production organization is quite feasible today, and we can expect that in many industries current hierarchical organizations will be replaced by networked organizations. In education, online social networks providing a new model of learning that is away from the classroom. Culture, online social networks mean that there is no role for talent promoters. These are all dramatic changes.

Lori Bell, Second Life Librarian and Director of Innovation, Alliance Library System

Pope/Bell: The impacts are huge. Every day it seems a new virtual world, or social networking tool is introduced. It is difficult to keep up with everything and to have time to evaluate it for your library. There is not much time to experiment with everything. Librarians need to collaborate to explore these tools and share knowledge about what works and does not to help others choose what they want to invest money and time in.

Weibel: In industry, social networking applications will take their place among other tools for connecting people with job and consulting opportunities and sharing business intelligence about best practices, new technologies and projects. Traditional boundaries between organizations will likely be somewhat more porous. News will travel faster, in less-managed channels.

In education, our first sources have always been our social network… only when that fails us are we willing to go to a library or professor. Social networking applications will sit next to our search engines. Meanwhile, posting our reading materials and favorite online sources will direct others to the stuff we like: read by example. Learning by watching what others do (or peeking, really) is a time-honored tradition that will be easier as tools develop.

For cultural institutions, these platforms will bring users closer to content, again, by our collective peeking at what others are doing with it.

Specifically, how do you see it affecting libraries/museums? Right now, and in the future?

Nigam: Online social networking has really broken down boundaries and brought together people from all over the world with similar interests. Social networking is an opportunity for libraries and museums to do the same—bring together their patrons, raise funds, and even have their core audience have a say in what exhibits they’d like to see, or what improvements need to be made.

Jones: The question might be rephrased as how will the online affect the offline and vice versa. We’ve seen vividly how the frictionless movement of information and goods is affecting world economies. How the music industry while trying to mount a resistance is in meltdown. How publishing and reading has been changed in what seems for the near term to be irreversible ways. Ask the encyclopedia folks. Ask a small textile town in the southern U.S.

If libraries and museum act on their heritage as places for intellectual improvement and social interaction and cultural cohesion, there is a great future for them. If they act as warehouses for cultural treasures as interpreted by the dominant culture, their days are numbered.

Academic libraries lead public libraries in the transition since more and more academic knowledge is shared digitally more quickly than popular knowledge. But this is only for the moment.

In the past few months, I have been in meetings with several different groups planning small town museums and cultural destinations. All of them talk more about services and events and involvement of the public than about amassing treasures in the traditional sense.

Online, whether social or no, distributes access to the treasures widely and without much friction. The online social networks can, if wisely participated in, increase the value of the institution and to the access of the original. Oddly, digital access creates a fetish for the original, a desire to see the object up close, a need to meet the person who wrote those words or is represented by that avatar.

Cultural institutions are challenged to find creative and effective ways to exploit this need to meet, to see the original, to follow discussions with physical actions, to enhance the social.

Stutzman: I see it affecting institutions in two ways. First, I see institutions deploying social networking functionality in their Web presence; this will provide customers a richer experience, while driving better analytics and more interesting ways of sorting/ranking/filtering content for users.

Second, I see tremendous amounts of opportunities for the objects these institutions posses to become “social objects.” A book, or a piece of art—clearly people would like to share their opinions/experiences of these objects. Look at Amazon—they have tremendous “social object” data around their books (reviews, etc.). Well, what if this data could be freed, or placed into a transportable directory? If we could overlay a meta-architecture that enabled conversation around social objects in any places (i.e. the conversation about a book would be at a multi-library level, not a single library level), I could see this benefiting patrons substantially.

Castronova: Elite cultural institutions no longer have a monopoly on the power to broadcast judgments of quality. There are three roles in online social culture: the creator, the consumer and the critic. The consumers will turn to critics in their hunt for cultural items that interest them. Today, consumers will turn to libraries and museums, since these institutions have reputations of expertise. However, those reputations have largely been self confirming. Great art is at the Met because great artists wanted their art to be known, and the Met is where you went to get your art known. That was in the past. Today, great art can become known through any of millions of channels. It will spread virally. Rather, notice will accrue to individual works of art as they persuade individual consumers of their merits.

Lori Bell Avatar

Critics will play an important role in this, by assessing the flood of artistic work that will come. Simply by rank ordering and commenting on the items in this flood, the critics will give clues to art lovers where to begin their searches. While that is an important role, it is not the dominant role that museums have had in the past. Moreover, there is no reason at all why museums would be able to dominate this role any better than any other person in this business. In order to play a continued role, the leaped cultural institutions must focus on their talents in assessing art and expressing those judgments to the public.

Pope/Bell: Public library use is up. Bricks and mortar libraries in communities are a place where people still gather to get books, attend programs, and take kids to story hour. Academic library use is down. Students do not go to the physical library unless they absolutely have to. One academic librarian told me that their book circulation is down so much that they could go totally virtual and serve students just as well with electronic books and journals and interactive services and training. Libraries of all types need to be evaluating and trying these tools as more and more people participate in virtual worlds and other social networking tools. The growth in the use of virtual worlds has been phenomenal—in April 2006, Second Life had 180,000 users—in May 2007 there are over 6 million and use continues to grow rapidly. Libraries need to be where their users are and reinvent some of what they do to meet the information needs people have.

Nicole Caruth, Interpretive Materials Manager, and Shelley Bernstein, Manager of Information Systems, are building an online community around the Brooklyn Museum by using social networking tools such as Flickr, where pictures are posted and comments gathered about museum exhibitions.

Caruth/Bernstein: Web 2.0 and social networking tools gives museums and libraries the opportunity to engage their current online audiences and simultaneously build an interactive Web community. The tools helped us align what had been detached efforts in order to create a more dynamic Web site, provide interactive exhibition experiences online and extend and advance the museum’s mission. For some, the online is the sole form of their visitation and for others it is an extension of their physical museum visit. In the process of using these tools, we’ve engaged our young audience demographic with blip.tv, podcasts of museum events, Flickr photos, MySpace promotion and also provided interactive learning tools and relevant forms of interpretation.

A good example was our summer exhibition Graffiti, which was on view from June 30–September 3, 2006.  The Interpretive Materials plan for Graffiti invited museum-goers to ‘tag’ two designated walls within the exhibition space. This wall was the tipping point for our collaboration, going forward, and the catalyst for building a dynamic interactive Web site. For, anticipating that this wall would change significantly during the exhibition’s eight-week run, we took the activity one step further—invite visitors to track the progress of the “Museum Mural” on our Web site. At the suggestion of the IS department, we employed the popular photo-sharing site Flickr, and for $24 a year (the cost of a Flickr pro account), we uploaded new digital images, weekly, taken off the wall. Through the use of Flickr, we realized that we could provide this content/activity quickly and efficiently, and without the arduous in-house development of our own program.

Now that we had a Flickr account, we started to think about other ways it could be leveraged. We decided to create another project in which we asked visitors to submit images of already-existing street art from their local Brooklyn neighborhoods. Photos e-mailed to the museum were posted to our Flickr account throughout the run of the exhibition. In the end, the community established the first-ever museum archive of local street artists.

Having a plan for in-gallery tagging, we started to ask ourselves if we could provide a way for Web visitors to do the same thing—create a graffiti drawing, but virtually, via the Web. We soon remembered that there was an online drawing tool as part of the museum’s award-winning teen site From Street to Studio, created for the exhibition Basquiat the previous year. In order to add this to our multimedia package, we hired the original development team of the Basquiat site (EduWeb) to repurpose the same tool in a generic form.

With this drawing tool, visitors to the Graffiti exhibition page were able to create online work using a virtual spray can, marker, pencil, or pen and submit it to an online gallery for others to see. The re-engineering of the drawing tool cost a fraction of what new development would have, and now that this tool has been generalized, we can use it over and over again for any suitable exhibition. Advancing the idea of museum accessibility, the drawing tool provided a way for visitors to make their mark even if they couldn’t come to the museum in person. Many submissions came in, both from local Brooklynites and a range of international contributors.

With digital equipment that we had purchased to record a cell phone audio tour, we partnered with the museum’s Adult Programs office to record exhibiting artists and local street artists, live, as they led tours through the exhibition. These recordings launched the museum’s podcast series. Because the recordings were live, we felt that these podcasts spoke to the spirit of spontaneity, which underlies our working style.

In addition to promoting the Graffiti exhibition on our own Web site, we got the word out through our MySpace page. Interestingly, one of the local street artists, Ellis G., had a popular MySpace presence. With Ellis’s help on MySpace, the museum was able to gain good word-of-mouth about the show and publicize the gallery talks and podcast series. Along the way, Ellis helped the museum make many MySpace friends.

At the close of Graffiti:

• There were 35,314 photo-set views (The ‘Museum Mural’ was viewed 12,488 times; Graffiti in Brooklyn was viewed 12,376)

• 913 photographs were submitted to the Graffiti in Brooklyn archive

• 1,338 virtual drawings were submitted

• There were 1,000 downloads of our three cumulative podcasts

• The museum’s MySpace page had over 3,000 friends.

The plan was a success in terms of sheer numbers, and an even bigger success in terms of mission. We had discovered that community on the Web didn’t necessarily mean programming on our own site. On the contrary, seeking out our audience in their own Web communities  was even more powerful. After all, why should we expect them to come to us?

Weibel: Libraries and museums are about fixity: managing the cultural stores of a society. Social networks are about fluidity and group behavior. The mixing of the two idioms seems highly desirable, allowing the user to swim in the intellectual currents of his or her peers (actual or would-be), all the while in close proximity to aggregated wisdom fixed in the treasures of societal heritage.

How can libaries best work to shape the next wave? Should they?

Nigam: Access to social networking sites in libraries is just one question within the broader topic of how to monitor Internet use overall. At MySpace, we believe Internet safety must be a shared responsibility between companies, parents, educators, law enforcers and legislators. MySpace encourages people to apply common sense safety lessons to online experiences and engage in open dialogue about smart practices just like any activity in life.

Librarians are in a unique position to educate young people about the role the Internet and MySpace should play in their lives, teach them what is and isn’t appropriate online behavior, and give them the tools they need to responsibly handle situations, involving a parent or adult when necessary.

Jones: First “Yes” to part two of the question, then:

Let’s start with online social network systems (SNSes) instead of starting with libraries. SNSes are not so much about building networks as about managing existing social relationships as numerous studies point out. Not a life on the Internet or a life in Second Life so much as, as Wellman puts it, Internet in Everyday Life.

SNSes and other technologies are good for libraries, if libraries can use them to increase and strengthen social ties between the institution and to those using and supporting the institution, to provide services seamlessly or at least more conveniently. In short to become more of a part of our Everyday Lives. SNSes are very good at this or so much better than what we’ve had before that their use and potentials are immediately visible.

A tale from today: I subscribe (via RSS) to a blog at a regional newspaper. The author there covers state government issues. He is off on an amusing tangent on “Catfish Amendments.” Where did the phrase come from and what does it mean?

He asks his readers and several old state government hands reply and/or put him into contact with other old hands. He does a Google Book Search and finds a snippet reference to a 1904 Congressional Appropriations Committee hearing.

But he asks how to get to read more. I alert him to WorldCat.org (you don’t have to pay me for saying this OCLC). At the same time, I realize that the University Library Reference Desk is my IM friend!

I IM my friend the Reference Desk. Sure enough we have the 1904 document on microfilm. And the Desk, who I now know as a person I pass in the parking lot, can and will do further research. I put the blogger/journalist in touch with the Desk and we all chat then move to e-mail.

Libraries need to be part of the Everyday Lives and of the friend relationships managed by SNSes. The nature of those SNSes may be 3D virtual, text, image, IM, Facebook, MySpace or something still in the garage or coffee shop just down the road. Libraries need to use technology to help shape the information seeking, interpreting and usages of the future. These technologies can help libraries be our better friends—and dare I say it, our better angels.

A sort addendum to my post. This just came in from my Reference Desk friend, which shows the value of the Library online vividly: “Look at the image of the document cover on the Google book search page you sent me: the second line from top reads ‘appropriations for 1964’ not 1904. We have the 1964 hearing; p. 616, 2nd paragraph from the bottom reads: ‘Messrs Bouldin, Vogtle, and Pulley remind one of the fisherman who held a small wriggling fish in his hand, preparatory to cleaning it for eating, and said: "Hold still, little fish. I'm not going to hurt you--I only want to gut you.’ This is part of the statement of Basil Thompson, General Manager, Alabama Electric Cooperative, Inc. pp. 609-618.”

Stutzman: I believe we need to develop schemas to enable meta-conversation around objects. This conversation must be social and transportable, so that institutions anywhere can leverage its value. Decentralization and breaking down walled gardens is a very important part of enabling conversation, and we can start by building the technical architecture of such contexts. There’s so much that humans can contribute to make the experience around a curated object more rich—we need to break down some boundaries and start enabling that potential.

Pope/Bell: Libraries need to shape the next wave. They need to be in on the beginning of these technologies to remain viable. Even in Second Life, we are promoting the local library and books and information resources. We have a number of monthly book discussion groups, talks by authors, and exhibits based around literature and the printed word. Libraries should collaborate to work on these because no one has the staff to do and keep up with everything. The more collaboration and partnerships libraries have in shaping the wave, the more successful we will be.

Castronova: I have already answered this question partly. Basically, the leaped cultural institutions should not expect to be listened to. They will have to earn an audience every day, by delivering useful and interesting commentary on art and literature to those who do not have the time to search deeply by themselves. The mere placement of a work in a library or museum will not suffice in this regard. There must be placement, as well as commentary.

Weibel: This is a hard question to answer. As a community, we are seldom competitive with the flexibility and speed of the entrepreneurial milieu of the Web. Further, we’re undercapitalized, risk averse, and lacking in the incentives that motivate rapid technological revolution. Our ability to lead the way in these developments is doubtful. Without question, however, we can (we must!) deliver content and applications into these emerging platforms, for it is there we will find our patrons.

In the longer run, our steady commitment to fixity will benefit us and our users. We’re trusted and we have a public business model based on adding long-term value to the community. You don’t need to spend much time in the emerging social networking communities to recognize that their business models handicap them even as they afford incentives for building them rapidly. The key to success for the cultural heritage institutions is related to enduring value, not quick profits.

Do you see social networking as a serious, long-term cultural and business phenomenon?

Nigam: Absolutely. Social networking sites have become part of the fabric of communication and are overwhelmingly positive channels for people to meet, talk, learn and share ideas. We’re only seeing the beginning of the possibilities this new medium will open up.

Jones: My brother, who was working in a prison ministry,told me: “The guys when they get out they have no networks that’s why it’s hard for them to find jobs or a place to stay or even a place to just have fun.” Of course, this is part of what prison is about—breaking down the social network that got the guys in trouble in the first place. What’s missing, as my brother noticed, is a replacement network. Without a network and associated social support we become steppenwolves, single that will not survive.

We are in a time not of no tribes but of multiple tribes, not of a single family but of multiple families, not in a time of a single social network but of multiple networks—each of the highly and loosely connected social structures more easy to manage in terms of time shifting, commitment, and in selection. How to make the support of these networks sustainable and flexible is the challenge be it in the form of a business, a government or a group of volunteers.

Stutzman: I see it as a core fabric of the net. The net is social—it has always been, since the first e-mail. Social networking ala Myspace and Facebook are just a new way of looking at how we connect. While I’m quite certain will look at these technologies as dated in a few years, we will always be “social networking” with each other. In five or ten years, it may be more elegant or more refined. We will likely look back on the “friending” process as archaic, we’ll likely think the technology is clunky, and I bet that MySpace’s aesthetic will be an exemplar for what not to do.

Regardless, our course has been set. There’s no turning back from this phenomenon—it has created expectations for mediated social maintenance, and that will continue going forward. I’d wager that “social networking” will be a defining cultural phenomenon of a generation. However, for that generation, they will look at it like those who went to college in the ’90s look at email—as decidedly unprofound and normal.

Pope/Bell: Social networking is a serious, long-term cultural and business phenomenon, but it is not new. People talk about library 2.0, Web 2.0, etc. but I think this is actually just a name for the technology tools used to create local and international communities in the 21st century. As I mentioned before, social networking has been with humans since the beginning of time and as technology is developed, the tools change. Social networks affect everyone because they shape the communities people participate in and how they participate.

Castronova: Yes. Humans are networking animals. They are built to communicate. They have destroyed the tribe, and now the family, in their zealous pursuit of broader social networks. I do not see this trend stopping anytime soon.

Caruth/Bernstein: Listening to our visitors is a big part of our mission and central to what we’ve been doing for many years. Web 2.0 and social networking is an extension of that and gives visitors a platform to easily communicate with us. As Ed Dilworth from Wired Magazine said, “The era of control is over: You can either stay in the bunker, or you can try to participate. And to not participate is criminal.” We encourage other institutions in similar situations and with similar goals to look at their exhibition schedules and find an occasion to begin participating in these community-generated arenas.

Weibel: Are social networking applications a long-term phenomenon? Returning to an earlier point, they already ARE a long-term phenomenon. Connecting to others, at many levels, is what most people want, privately and professionally. It is a happy irony that we are witnessing the steady transition of computing technology from an alienating presence in our lives towards an enabling technology for better communication and connection.

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