Talk:Social networking service

The difference between a social media website and a social networking service is not made clear in these articles, and if it does exist at all, it doesn't seem important enough to warrant a split. Fundamentally, this is a gigantic

• Support Weak oppose. I agree with everything written there. I don't think there's enough difference between the two that keeping them separate serves readers. Pinging in everybody from
  Buffaboy, Jaobar, and MarqFJA87. Jaobar said he was happy to discuss this further so I'd be interested in what he has to say about what difference exists between the two in the popular mind. Enterprisey (talk!) 06:44, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  (re-ping due to rename: Dekema) Enterprisey (talk!) 06:45, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Switching to oppose. I have been convinced by the arguments below. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:36, 9 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Media and networking are different concepts, at least in marketing. A medium is used to broadcast a message to a wide audience, such as an advertisement or PR piece. Networking is about building relationships among members of a network and messages passed are specific from one member to another. Social media and social networking can coexist on the same platform. For instance on Facebook a company can broadcast ads to a wide audience, but members can also communicate with each other, forming a network. Viral campaigns use both mechanisms: media are used inject a message into a community, such as a corporate tweet and networking is used to amplify that message, such as through retweets and linking. I don't think anyone in Web marketing would ever confuse social media with social networking. Facebook supports social networking on their platform, but makes money on the social media broadcast to a captive audience on that platform. Their coexistence on various platforms may cause confusion among lay people. But confusion among lay people is not a strong argument for merging. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 08:04, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Ah, I think I get it. Thank you for the explanation. As I'm not an expert in the field, I think I rather need to think about this a bunch more before replying further. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:37, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak oppose. Social media is mainly about Web 2.0 and the advantages and disadvantages of User-generated content. Social networking service is a much broader concept. The merged article would be too long and unmanageable. The Social networking service article may be shortened by trimming down the discussion of social media and adding a hatnote referring to the Social media article. Agnerf (talk) 09:24, 9 November 2021 (UTC)Agnerf (talk) 09:10, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as I believe that both of these topics can be explained and differentiated in one article. Although social media may concern itself with Web 2.0, they are all social networking services.
  talk) 22:56, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose Hi everyone, apologies for taking a while to reply. I maintain what I said previously. The concepts likely still have distinct audiences, which is in part, perhaps due to differences in the literature. As you may know, there is a social networking literature that precedes Web 2.0. Something else to consider, yes, Facebook is both social media and SNS; however, Facebook and similar apps and websites are referred to as stand-alone services. There is also built-in social media functionality. This distinction complicates distinctions between what might be referred to as social media or SNS. Happy to discuss this further. --Jaobar (talk) 17:34, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: To those opposing @Mark viking, Agnerf, and Jaobar: I'd encourage you to edit the articles to attempt to articulate the difference between the concepts. You've laid out a bunch of possible distinctions, not all of which agree with each other or with the articles as presently written. The current lead of social media doesn't even link to social networking service. I'd also remind everyone that the existence of some difference in the terms does not necessarily mean that we ought to have two separate articles. Forking essentially doubles the editing workload, which is a huge cost to bear unless it's absolutely necessary. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:48, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Agree with this. As an example, one low-hanging fruit is the Definition section. It essentially duplicates the 4-point definition from the social media article and cites an article defining social media, not social networking services in general (Obar, Jonathan A.; Wildman, Steve (October 2015). "Social media definition and the governance challenge: An introduction to the special issue".)

  I feel like there is a distinction between SNS and social media (ex: maybe MMORGS are SNS but not social media), but I'd like to see more development of this distinction in the article. Quohx (talk) 21:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose: Ibid what Jaobar said. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:02, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]