"Of course there are many things that people call "social networks", but that's more confusing than enlightening. The "social network" aspect of these products is just a mechanism, not the purpose, and their purposes are often more different than similar. It's like saying that something is a "Javascript". Many websites use Javascript, but hopefully the Javascript is only there in order to accomplish some other purpose. LinkedIn and Twitter, for example, both use Javascript and social networking mechanisms, but clearly they are very different products and have very different uses. Facebook likes to call itself a "social utility", but to me that's just as meaningless." - Shakeel Mahate via Bookmarklet
