Sunday, 31 August 2008

Comparing Myspace/Facebook and Flickr

Social networking sites are very diverse. Some exist for a single purpose while others exist for multiple purposes. Social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace which are egocentric are different from a social working site like Flickr which is object centric.

All these sites provide a forum for uploading and sharing information. For my space and Facebook, this includes photos, videos, content and links to other websites. For Flickr, it is only concerned with sharing pictures.

All these sites provide an avenue for having and managing relationships on line, sometimes with people of shared interest and other times not necessarily.

They all provide an opportunity for having fun, sharing views, widening networks and links and having a bigger pool of resources with less effort.

They support the use of mobile devices.

Myspace and Facebook allow a public display of profiles and friends, with an opportunity for people to leave messages for friends.
Pictures on flickr can be edited and tagged, while pictures on facebook and myspace cannot.

Pictures on flickr can have notes added on to them, and the pictures can also be tagged while pictures on facebook and myspace cannot.

Pictures on flickr can be shared through emails, and blogs while pictures on facebook and myspace can only be viewed.

1 comment:

openlearners said...

Hi Longret,
Yes these are all good points really. Interesting mention you make of the fun aspect which I think is important to the extent that some people write about this as 'gaming.' By this they mean that the generating of content, the sharing of it and having others rate it are all facets of what makes up a game. The suggestion is that people who are active and familiar with social networking sites develop a mindset of game-playing when they participate.