On Thursday, 18 September 2014 at 16:35:10 UTC, Bruno Medeiros
wrote:
I went to the great oracle (Wikipedia) to clarify what is the
more formal and proper term for this. Fair enough, indeed the
likes of
Facebook/Google+/MySpace/LinkedIn/Twitter/Instagram/tumblr/etc.
are more precisely called "online social networking services".
So ok, I concede that Github can be called a "social network".
Although under that interpretation so is any web forum or
bulletin board that has more than a handful of people
communicating. (Personally I would still prefer avoiding that
term.)
It can and should be called as such. At least as far as I am
familiar with this domain "social network" term belongs more to
sociology than to webdev / technology. It as a useful term to
have exactly because it implies certain human behavior patterns
and how those can be used for business purpose, whatever exact
application domain you have.
I change my point to say that Github is not a "social
networking service" then.
Sure, I have never pretended it is.
