facebook network and nexus
I’m now fully integrated into facebook, friends and all. (Worlds are colliding.) Brayden talked about tools for visualizing one’s facebook network, so I decided to have my MBA org theory students map their facebook networks and to bring them to class. We had a great discussion about various network concepts based on the personal visualizations. The visualizations helped us to seamlessly work in the assigned networks readings/concepts. The simplest tool we found is ludios.net’s nexus friend grapher, it generates your facebook network with the click of a button and has some fun features.
Notice the clustering. If you were to draw a box and zoom in, the number of the clusters you observe varies with how far you are zoomed in. This is not a random network, but neither is it scale free. Moreover, the average number of connections at each scale depends on where you zoom in. The density of connections is higher in the middle cluster.
All of these translate into different temporal dependence for goods or information exchanged through the network. The structure of the network and the dynamics of exchange within it are deeply intertwined.
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Michael F. Martin
April 30, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Here’s the mathematical analysis:
Click to access synchrocom.pdf
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Michael F. Martin
April 30, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Teppo, how did you get your network to save as an image? For some reason I can’t save mine. Nearly 1500 nodes is somewhat of an artwork with how mine are grouped.
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Hillbilly
April 30, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Got it! Sorry, the server was being a little too slow for my frantic, end of the semester self!
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Hillbilly
April 30, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Its a user-friendly tool.
Thanks Michael for the link.
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tf
May 1, 2009 at 5:56 am
I’ve had this on my profile for at least a year now. It’s similar to something called the ‘friend wheel’, but that doesn’t display all the interconnections as beautifully.
note: it’s easier to read in the dark scheme.
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Byron Woodson
May 1, 2009 at 1:28 pm