Social Network Sites (SNS): do they match ? Definitions and methods for social sciences and marketing research

Social Networks Sites (SNS) such as Facebook, MySpace, Skyrock.com or Linkedin have become new fields of investigation for marketing. Even though the phenomenon has met with an amazing popular success, only a few scientific works have been published on this subject. This article proposes initially to evaluate the situation by a review of the experts' discourses and, then, a an analysis of the texts in core disciplines specialising in social networks analysis (mainly sociometry, anthropology and sociology). Finally this work will help us to propose a definition for SNS as a research subject and to design a methodology for marketing research