How Last.fm Strengthens Relationships and Creates New Ones
by: Nancy BaymOne of the big questions raised by social networking sites is what the heck those “friendships” really are. In this paper, written with my former Ph.D. student and now Ohio University...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Friendship Isn't Dead. The Strengthening of Loose Ties
by: David ArmanoThis is my first attempt at writing anything since attending the SXSW conference for the first time—it was quite an experience, from the panels to the parties to the conversations in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Friends Shape Culture More than Editors
It WAS bold of marketing directors to invest in digital and social media campaigns a year ago. In revisionist marketing thinking, if you hadn’t done it, you’d be crazy. If you’re the least bit curious...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Project Gaydar and Online Privacy (or What You Might Be Telling the World)
An experiment by students at MIT has shown that they were able to ’successfully’ predict the sexuality of people based on their friends on Facebook. The so-called ‘Project Gaydar’* showed that by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 6 Types of Last.fm Friends
I’ve been continuing to analyze the data I collected about friendships on Last.fm. Last week I presented a paper at Internet Research 10.0 in Milwaukee co-authored with Kiley Larson, Andrew Ledbetter,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Twitter Spot in Your Brain
These days, you can’t go online without bumping into someone styling himself as a social media guru, a Facebook expert, or a power user of Twitter. And, if you check their online profiles, they...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Where MySpace Went Wrong and What It Can Still Do Right
This week MySpace announced it is laying off half of its workforce. This follows an attempt at rebranding itself as a “social entertainment hub,” a new and widely-ridiculed logo, and a warning from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Color Commentary: The End of the Friend
Whoever said there’s not much new on the Web should have been around last week for the much-ballyhooed launch of Color– celebrated as one of the most exciting Web concepts to appear this year. If it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fans or Friends?
Last weekend I gave a talk at the International Communication Association about the increasingly interpersonal nature of the relationships between musicians and friends. In it, I draw on the interviews...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Your Brain’s Twitter Limit: 150 Real Friends
Twitter’s approach to easy social connections lets people build big networks, often quickly. Celebrities attract millions of followers. Even non-celebrities can develop many thousands of friends; some...
View Article