We were asked a simple question: is Facebook increasing the size of people’s personal networks? This is a particularly difficult question to answer, so as a first attempt we looked into the types of relationships people do maintain, and the relative size of these groups. While the average Facebook user communicates with a small subset of their entire friend network, they maintain relationships with a group two times the size of this core. This not only affects each user, but also has systemic effects that may explain why things spread so quickly on Facebook.
Tag Archives: Facebook
Some overdue updates
I have the unhealthy expectation that Facebook = Reality, and sometimes I forget that not everyone has a news feed (or reads theirs every day). In case you missed them, here are some recent events in my life: I got engaged to my lovely girlfriend I started a new job as a research scientist atContinue reading “Some overdue updates”
Facebook opens registration
Facebook has recently been making big changes, such as offering APIs and experimenting with privacy. Some of these changes have been met with positive feedback, and others with hostility, but it is obvious from these recent experiments that they are testing new waters. Probably the biggest change they have proposed though is opening registration toContinue reading “Facebook opens registration”
Privacy and transparency
Recently Facebook has introduced a few feature which has raised a lot of attention among users and bloggers. This piece of the system, called the News Feed shows you activity of your contacts within Facebook. If your friend posts to their blog, uploads a photo, attends an event or changes almost anything in their profile,Continue reading “Privacy and transparency”
overstated 