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After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify
others in the system with whom they have a relationship. The label for these
relationships differs depending on the site—popular terms include
"Friends," "Contacts," and "Fans." Most SNSs require bi-directional

confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties are
sometimes labeled as "Fans" or "Followers," but many sites call these
Friends as well. The term "Friends" can be misleading, because the

connection does not necessarily mean friendship in the everyday vernacular
sense, and the reasons people connect are varied (boyd, 2006a).
The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs.
The Friends list contains links to each Friend's profile, enabling viewers to

traverse the network graph by clicking through the Friends lists. On most
sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone who is permitted to view the
profile, although there are exceptions. For instance, some MySpace users

have hacked their profiles to hide the Friends display, and LinkedIn allows
users to opt out of displaying their network.
Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on

their Friends' profiles. This feature typically involves leaving "comments,"
although sites employ various labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often
have a private messaging feature similar to webmail. While both private

messages and comments are popular on most of the major SNSs, they are
not universally available.
Not all social network sites began as such. QQ started as a Chinese
instant messaging service, LunarStorm as a community site, Cyworld as a

Korean discussion forum tool, and Skyrock (formerly Skyblog) was a
French blogging service before adding SNS features. Classmates.com, a
directory of school affiliates launched in 1995, began supporting articulated

lists of Friends after SNSs became popular. AsianAvenue, MiGente, and
BlackPlanet were early popular ethnic community sites with limited Friends
functionality before re-launching in 2005-2006 with SNS features and
structure.

Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs
vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or
video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant

messaging technology. There are mobile-specific SNSs (e.g., Dodgeball),
but some web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions (e.g.,
Facebook, MySpace, and Cyworld). Many SNSs target people from specific

geographical regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always
determine the site's constituency. Orkut, for example, was launched in the