I've
previously argued that what we call "social networking" comprises (at least) two major parts: A graph of network connections, with access control, and a social aspect, through which people identify themselves as belonging to various groups. Here are some possible names for the social aspect:
- Social Aspect or Social Component: Why not? Not snappy, but descriptive.
- Totem: Earl suggests this in a comment. Webster's defines it as an entity that watches over or assists a group of people. The term has spiritual origins, but so do daemon and avatar, for example.
- Brand: If totem has more purely human connotations, brand is more purely commercial (notwithstanding that commerce is a very human activity). The term is already in use; commercial sites care very much about their brands.
There probably isn't any one correct term, and if there is one, it may not be any of the above. I can't think of many cases where someone would say "
X is my brand", but on the other hand business people use the term freely and appropriately. For that matter, I'm not sure I can see people saying "
X is my totem," but you never know what might catch on.
1 comment:
The meaning I was after, and which one definition of "totem" seemed to fill, was "emblem of a clan or group," quite unlike "daemon" or "avatar." Anthropologists use "Moiety" to denote a division of a group, but that's not quite it either. I'm convinced there's a perfectly good word for this out there which we've so far failed to apprehend.
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