[Air-l] I'm researching virality in social networks : suggested papers?

[John Veitch]

Tom Shelley asked:
> How does social design affect the spread of social networks?
> What specific features can help hinder the spread of a social network?
> How different invitation models effect the spread of a social network?
> Can a rapid spreading site destroy the original community? 
> How to create a truly social space as opposed to YASN?

I'm a very active member in several business related social networks.
I'm aware of no academic research. With the limited tools I have, I've 
tried to run some numbers of my own.

Everywhere I look I find the same general pattern. Social networks are 
not very social. Most people who join never get much further than 
joining, large numbers never get their personal page built. Many have no 
links to anyone else. Where membership is by invitation only, 
significant numbers have only that single connection.

Take linkedIn for instance. The median number of contacts of the 9 
million LinkedIn members is a number less than 5, probably less than 4. 
(All the people who have 0 connections are invisible to me.) That's 
significant because linkedIn begins to be useful when you have 30+ links.

AC Nielsen report  "In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers 
who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users 
account for almost all the action".

My own data broadly supports that position.

The other network I've studied a lot is Ryze. The top 5% of all members 
attract 50% of all the homepage visits.

Ryze was interesting because it's the only network I know of that had 
successful active forums, but even those are under threat by lack of 
participation. There are forums in Viadeo, Xing, Ecademy and some Yahoo 
forums for LinkedIn. In my view none of these work well.

The high rate of non-participation in social networks is for me just an 
uninteresting and sad fact. I've become much more interested in what 
happens to the few who do participate actively, the top 2% of users. 
I've witnessed remarkable changes in these people, significant life 
changing differences. It takes a lot of effort, regular reading, and 
regular responses to the letters of other people. Maybe 2 hours a day.

The result? People who have no opinion about anything, and who seem to 
agree with everyone, start by just agreeing all the time or by making 
jokes. They want to be popular. They don't have the courage to take a 
stand on topics. If they actively participate, over time, a couple of 
years, they become more knowledgeable and capable of holding an opinion 
and arguing a point of view. By this time the individual will have 
become a network leader. These networks evolve.  The example I know best 
began as "Couch Potatoes" became "TV Trivia" and is now called "Truth 
Seekers". Truth Seekers is a very active 20-40 letters a days forum on 
international politics, economic and social issues but with a very 
distinct American bias because most of the members are Americans.  The 
woman who runs this network began to contribute as a guest to other 
people's forums, started a podcast of her own, and that has led to some 
work on a radio show.

What I've seen over and over is that people begin shy and without the 
courage, and perhaps without the ability to make a clear statement about 
what they know.  If they PRACTISE every day, first by reading 
interesting posts, their knowledge grows. Once they begin to actively 
engage in writing posts themselves the rate of learning increases 
significantly. Three years on these people are taking significant roles 
as leaders, not just in the social network but also in their community 
life and in their business life.

This is NOT the promised development that joining the networks is 
supposed to bring.  The promise was that you'd make money by doing 
business deals with other members.  Transformation of WHO YOU ARE was 
not supposed to be on the menu.  Too scary?  Maybe, but I've seen a lot 
of it.

This is a simple understandable process. You become good at whatever you 
DO on a regular basis. Those who seek to understand issues and to share 
their understanding with other people, get good at learning from others 
and much better at being able to construct a point of view of their own. 
The improvement in writing skill is a measurable thing. There are Ryze 
letters going back over 5 years now that could be used to show both the 
change in subject matter over time, and the improved ability to 
construct a viewpoint.

The questions Tom Shelly asks are far too difficult to understand. 
Online Social Networks are too new, and too fragile and too different 
for research into the questions asked to be possible. There are just too 
many variables.  One of those is cultural. Networks on Ryze got off to 
such a wonderful start because the original base for members was 
American. There are many Ryze Networks run by people from India. Those 
networks have an entirely different flavour. On Xing the networks are 
dominated by Germans, on Viadeo by the French. The topics of interest, 
and the style of discussion is quite different in each of these areas.

There is a lot of work to do to understand online social networks. My 
general advice is to ignore the press, and to ignore the number of 
members claimed by various networks. The propaganda will always lead you 
away from the truth. Find a group where the activity trail of active 
members can be traced. Ignore the 95%+ who are really inactive. Find out 
what the other 5% are doing.

Regards
John

-- 
"John Stephen Veitch"
http://www.ate.co.nz
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