Social Networking Sites: Will They Survive?(Essay‪)‬

Social Networking Sites (SNS) have achieved phenomenal success since the launch of sixdegrees.com in 1997. Original sites such as Friendster, Lunarstorm and MiGente, are now all dwarfed by the phenomenally successful Myspace (1), and Facebook (2). A useful historical record of the development of Social Networking sites was made by Boyd and Ellison in 2007 (3), although more work is needed to understand the gratifications delivered, how users derive a sense of identity and the cross cultural implications to users. The goal of this short paper is to weave digitization, identity and community into an analysis that is both historically rigorous and conscious of contemporary innovations. Do Social Network sites mark a legitimate paradigm shift or a mere extension of previous technologies?