[Air-l] the choice of social network is a social network phenomenon?

[Barry Wellman]

It is path dependency. If most of your friends are on FB or MS,
then you will choose that one. I haven't seen hard data on socioeconomic
differences, and I'd be reluctant to generalize that FB is mid-class and
MS working-class. You're seeing local clustering, which may not be
consistent across localities or interest groups. Often, it is based on
just a local seed (one of the pitfalls of statistical cluster analysis,
btw). WHy, for ex, is FB hotter in Canada than the US? I doubt that it
originally had much to do with a nicer interface.

Two notes on terminology:

1. Consistent with Lauren Squires, I'm running a small conference Nov 1-2
with the title "Social Network/ing". It's mostly academic, with some
industry attendance, and mostly local, but with visiting speakers:
Keith Hampton, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Nan Lin and Fernanda Viegas. (and
Jon Kleinberg on Oct 30 as a stand-alone). Attendance is free, but we
don't do anything for you: find your own room and restaurant. (But do let
me know if you're coming).

2. As for terms, altho I like danah's "friendstering", I have been using
"linked" for many years -- well before the LinkedIn folks started, and I
still think it best represents the FB/MS phenomenon. But Naomi Baron might
know more about this.


 Barry Wellman
 _____________________________________________________________________

  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
            For fun -- updating songs, movies and history:
            http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
            Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender now
 _____________________________________________________________________