Empirical analysis of online social networks in the age of Web 2.0

PhysicaA387(2008)675–684www.elsevier.com/locate/physaEmpiricalanalysisofonlinesocialnetworksintheageofWeb2.0∗FengFu,LianghuanLiu,LongWangCenter for Systems and Control, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, ChinaDepartment of Industrial Engineering and Management, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, ChinaReceived17July2007;receivedinrevisedform30September2007Availableonline9October2007AbstractToday the World Wide Web is undergoing a subtle but profound shift to Web 2.0, to become more of a social web. The useof collaborative technologies such as blogs and social networking site (SNS) leads to instant online community in which peoplecommunicaterapidlyandconvenientlywitheachother.Moreover,therearegrowinginterestandconcernregardingthetopologicalstructureofthesenewonlinesocialnetworks.Inthispaper,wepresentempiricalanalysisofstatisticalpropertiesoftwoimportantChinese online social networks—a blogging network and an SNS open to college students. They are both emerging in the ageof Web 2.0. We demonstrate that both networks possess small world and scale free features already observed in real world andartificial networks. In addition, we investigate the distribution of topological distance. Furthermore, we study the correlationsbetween degree (in/out) and degree (in/out), clustering coefficient and degree, popularity (in terms of number of page views) andin degree(forthebloggingnetwork),respectively ...