Social media researchers Danah Boyd of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Mass., and Nicole B. Ellison of Michigan State University define social networking as having three distinct features
- they must provide a forum where users can construct a public or semipublic profile;
- create a list of other users with whom they share a connection;
- and view and move around their list of connections and those made by others.
Examples of social networking sites are FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.